gardening, not blogging

i have built 4 boxes for square foot gardens and filled 3 with soil and planted them. i've got a 4th box made, ready to be filled with soil and planted. it will have the really hot weather stuff--okra, corn, moon and stars watermelon, yellow squash, and a melon called charentais that i saw in the nichols catalog that looks similar to canteloupe and is supposedly delicious.

i check my garden before and after work. i water plants by hand using sun-warmed water (the chlorine has evaporated too, making it even better for my plants). i reuse plastic kitty litter containers and dip the water out with a bowl that holds about 8 ounces--just the right amount for a square foot. the plants seem to be responding quite well.

the recent rains haven't hurt either.

i've harvested about 8 strawberries from 4 plants, with more to come. i have eaten thinnings of green onions, spinach, and chard, and added homegrown dill, parsley, arugula, and a feathery mustard to salads.

this garden is giving me such pleasure! the 4x4' boxes are divided into 1' squares using a grid. i planted accordingly--either 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants/seeds per square, depending on the size of the mature plant. grids give these gardens a visual order. i notice the plants in each grid and am able to compare it in my memory to how it looked last time i viewed it. it helps me stay on top of things, like when the arugula needs to be pinched.

the third box, planted april 12, is really coming along! the natural gardener had no legume inoculant, so i planted both bush and pole beans without it. most of them sprouted anyway. it's easy to see where the holes are when you plant 9 beans per square, and i will probably wait a few more days to see if any late sprouters poke up through the soil before i plant replacements.

newly emerged seeds in that box include mammoth sunflowers, 3 kinds of pole beans (green, yellow, and purple), Romano bush beans, an early sweet corn, 3 colors of zucchini (light green, dark green, and yellow), and New Zealand spinach. i haven't grown that before. i also have Malabar spinach seeds to plant in the fourth box--they climb. i don't think NZ spinach climbs, but i shall find out!

the pole beans are planted so that they can climb up the corn and sunflowers! elsewhere i planted cucumber seeds around a sunflower seed, so they can climb it too. it's all an experiment--trial and error. i'm keeping a notebook so i can keep track of what does well.

other plants i haven't grown before include stevia and ground cherry, a nightshade with sweet fruit. can't wait to taste them! yes, i'm growing something i've never eaten! (well, i've eaten stevia before, but only processed.)

the soil mix is the same in each box: 3 10-gallon bags of Rose Magic from the natural gardener and an equal amount (by volume) of organic peat moss. i mixed "garden pep" (cottonseed meal from the natural gardener) in box 3. no wonder the new beans can grow 2" in a day! i now understand the origins of the jack and the beanstalk story!

i've got 2 kinds of spinach and red lettuce going. i'm going to try shade cloth over them for the first time to see if i can extend them into the hot summer. but if not, i also have spinach beet (a nichols novelty), chard, the NZ and malabar spinaches, amaranth (hin choy), lambsquarters, and sorrel to provide greens through the summer.

i bought transplants of miniature tomatoes and sweet peppers from seed savers exchange and have also planted transplants of eggplant (regular and japanese).

i imagine that at some point, i will have more food than i can eat. i've been hearing about wheatville's new "gro-op" program--don't know the details yet, but it sounds like it may provide a way to share the excesses of my garden and partake of others' bounty. if so, how cool is that?

i also am planning to plant some gourds to grow up trees and fences and provide me some new and interesting containers. dippers, bowls, birdhouses, bottles--many possibilities await.

i plan to have a separate flower garden just outside my back door with several kinds of sunflowers, zinnia, and marigolds, all good cutting flowers for the house, office, and giving away.

i'd still like to find some holy basil to make tea with.

so, that's how i've been spending my time this glorious month of april. gardening, not blogging.