Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Taking the Plunge

Since I moved into a house as an adult and had a garden, I've come to enjoy gardening. I love seeing bulbs come up in the spring, and I love trees, and seeing flowers through the season.

And I try to be at least moderately ecologically careful.

With that combination, you'd think I'd garden veggies, for sure, right? Except I don't, because I don't like to cook. Now, I'm perfectly happy to eat a salad. I'm pretty much happy to eat anything (except raw tomatoes, because they taste slimy). But cooking stuff, not so much.

I do like to bake cookies and occasionally bread, but cooking to cook, just doesn't strike my fancy. So having loads of healthy fresh greens and such, which appeals to people who like to cook, leaves me befuddled.

But yesterday, I was weeding. There's this one patch in my back yard, about 4' by 4' (with a bit more along the side of the lawn) that gets great sun, and grows weeds like nobody's business. And as I was weeding that patch, I finally thought to myself, "self, you should put something edible here."

Now, there are a few veggies I love, artichokes especially. And with my friend's help, I've got some artichoke plants in pots around the deck right now. (Cross your fingers for me.) To be honest, I could live on artichokes pretty much every day, just steamed with mayo or melted butter.

But other than that, I'm happy to eat whatever veggie-wise, but not so excited that I want to cook veggies or make them into a salad. I recognize that this is a horrid personal and moral failing.

I feel pretty good about asparagus, though, and will cook that if I remember that I have it.

And I love strawberries.

So I called a friend, and she sent me to the farm supply place she recommends and likes, and I got about 20 strawberries and 6 asparagus roots.

And then I put fertilizer and compost in, and planted. I got about half-way through the strawberries yesterday afternoon, before I was tuckered out. Only later did I realize that it was nearly 90F here, and so the dripping sweat wasn't just me being especially whussy. (I sweat a lot on my bike, but since I'm moving, it doesn't tend to drip onto my dark glasses. Sweat drops make it hard to see clearly, in case you didn't know.)

I got up and planted early this morning (I started about 7am) because I wanted to be done before it got so hot. But it hasn't really gotten hot today, just really, really windy.

Surprisingly, the plants I planted in yesterday's heat seemed to have perked up by this morning when I watered them. And I've watered the ones I planted this morning again this afternoon (since the wind is really drying). (It's almost as bad as the Sta. Annas, and those are horrid.)

Wish me luck in my new foray into food farming, even if it's only a little area. (My strawberries went far beyond my little patch, and are now intermingled with other stuff where I had some room. Mmmmm, strawberries.) It's supposedly going to take me til the year after next to really get some food out of either planting, but I can hope, right?

6 comments:

  1. This is so cool. I feel I can garden by proxy, since I love to cook but little grows at my 7000 foot elevation. I'll cook. You garden!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I too am taking the plunge this summer -- my first vegetable garden! I also don't like to cook, but the things I planted are for the most part things I'm happy to eat raw (except for the corn, which is easy to steam). Good luck to both of us in our agricultural adventures!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is excellent, and the strawberries may prove to be a good gateway drug: I can't think of a better advertisement for home gardening than a fresh-picked strawberry!

    ReplyDelete
  4. So jealous you have real dirt to grow in.Pics please....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous5:59 AM

    Yummy!

    Our strawberries are doing a second batch.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nik, I would SO take you up on that!

    What Now? What did you plant? I didn't try corn, because even though I love it, it's abundant and cheap at the farmer's market, and it takes a fair bit of space to get many cobs.

    Renaissance Girl, I agree! Strawberries are about as good as it gets!

    Peggy, Calling what is in my yard "dirt" is too generous. Mostly it's scree, because when they built this house, they scraped away all the soil and put it into the rock, and then they added an inch of soil back, mixed with the rocks. It's really nasty. I've been adding organic material like mad since I've lived here, and it's still ugly.

    NicoleandMaggie, mmmm, strawberries! Now I'm hungry!

    ReplyDelete