Garden: Day Two

On Monday after work, Dave joined me in the garden. He put up a two-foot high fence and turned over some dirt, while I staked out some of the green twine that makes up the borders of my vegetable plots. I had planned to plant all of my cold-weather veggies last Sunday, but it snowed and was in the thirties, so I pushed everything off until today. We woke up fairly early this morning and headed out to the coffee shop. After a cup of coffee I left Dave there and walked down to Lafayette Florist to buy onion sets, broccoli plants, and asparagus sets. I also picked up a soil tester. I know the soil is bad, but it would be nice to figure out how to amend it. I’ve been planning to plant asparagus in our side garden, since it’s perennial and I can’t plant it in the community garden plot. I’m worried that it won’t get enough sun there, but I figured I might as well give it a shot.

I picked Dave up at the coffee shop and dropped him off at home, where I made some more coffee to take over to the garden. It was a pretty chilly morning—I could see my breath. I got to the garden at about 11:00 a.m. and turned over the dirt in the plots I’d already lined. Then I got out the tape measure and finished lining the whole thing. I stomped down the dirt in the pathways and then started turning over the rest of the dirt in the plots. The top layer dries out right away and develops huge, hard clumps that are like rocks! I hope that by occasionally turning over the areas I won’t plant in for a while, I can keep from having to smash up hundreds of hard dirt clods when I am ready to plant the squash and other later veggies.

In between tasks, I met a few of my garden neighbors. Three women are sharing a plot near mine, and it’s their first time at the community garden. I gave them some advice about the pumphouse and tried to dissuade their admiration of my plot. Complication is not always a virtue! Yes, it looks like an English maze, but there’s a strong likelihood that the veggies will be wilted and spotted. There’s also—strangely—too much space. Even a pretty good crop of each vegetable looks sparse. Oh well. After I finished turning over the dirt, I added markers to each plot. Valerie and Don gave me some really nice ones, which only added to my neighbors’ overblown impression of my abilities. Then I got out the broccoli plants, onion sets, and seeds, and got to work. I know I should keep the broccoli under a cold frame or cloche for a couple of weeks, but as I told it under my breath, “be hardy or die.” I don’t have the time or energy to go cover and uncover it. Besides, last year, when I hadn’t yet figured out that broccoli is a cold-weather plant, I planted it in mid-summer. It survived, wiltingly, through the summer and produced two tiny florets in the fall. So I have high hopes for this year. Most everything I planted will get planted again in a week or two—I’m trying for shifts, to see if I can prolong our harvesting. I’ll also plant much of it again in the fall, in time (I hope!) to harvest again before I cede the plot back to the city of Lafayette for the winter. (I can’t believe I’m thinking about the winter!) Anyway, I seeded lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, peas, and beets.

Then I came home, gulped down some Pepsi, and ate a cup of hot peas, a piece of Swiss cheese, and a carrot. And went back outside, to plant the asparagus sets and seed ten pots of dirt with eggplant seeds.

****Breaking News!****

I was supposed to plant artichoke seeds inside!! Rats. Good thing I wrote this entry. I guess the eggplant will be early and I’ll have to buy some more pots for the artichoke, which really does need to be started inside.

Big day in the garden, done. Now I just have to water, water, water, water.