My Garden Journal

just keepin track of some plants.

[gardengournal]

may seventeenth

i slept in again, and did computer stuff and phone calls most of the day until i finally got outside in the evening and put the farmers’ market tomato plants in the ground with that great nasturtium i bought at the plant sale.

most of my time though was spent building the structures for my tomatoes and eventual cucumbers. i used the same style i went with last year for the tomato cage. really not a cage at all: it looks like a playground swing set, only four feet tall and made of bamboo.

i had to remind myself about how to tie the knots. i’m still mystified by knots. i want to learn them. there are so many! i used:

- diagonal lashing

- clove hitch

- tripod lashing for the cucumber trellis

i kind of improvised the clove hitch to fix the top crossbar onto the two sets of stands on either side of the tomato thing. i’m not explaining this well. maybe i’ll take pictures later.

there’s also string that i loop loosely around the root ball before laying the tomato plants into the ground. i do a gentle wrap around the buried part of the stem and bring up where the plant emerges and fix it onto the cross bar. i need like a lasso knot for that so i can adjust the tension as the plant grows and trains up it. i couldn’t remember how to do that though so i’ll come back to it. 

we’re supposed to get rain in the early morning. which is now actually. i’m up late trying to move stuff off of the solid state drive i’m going to reformat to use as the start up disk for my editing pc. alex is coming this weekend now so i have to hustle to get it built so we can be productive. 

it probably would have been worthwhile to buy a new ssd, but this was a good excuse to get rid of old shit. still lots of crap i’m saving but i also uncovered some gems that were buried in unorganized backups. folder names like “DESKTOP BACKUP 2″ are crying out for a better system. i’ll work on that.

jackie killed a bird today. i don’t think she means to - she just knows to chase, and when she catches one she’s not sure of next steps. i got her away from it and watched it take its last gasps. it was young i think. and overhead its kin were freaking the fuck out. not for long though. i guess once it’s over they know there’s no use flapping around any more.

[gardengournal]

may sixteenth

i didn’t go to bed soon after my last entry. i stayed up way too late. again.

such a gorgeous day but i only ventured outside to go meet joe for lunch at amerasia. i walked over to garden grove organics after to pick up some seeds. only ended up with some danvers half long carrots and marketmore cucumbers.

i asked about bird netting for my berries but they’re all about indoor growing and hydroponics so no luck. i brought up my squash vine borer problem too just because they did have an organic pest control section but the guy was like “honestly i think the best way to deal with that is just kill them.”

i wandered down seventh back home with my two new seed packs stuffed inside the free beer koozie i was inexplicably given at amerasia. got to klinenberg’s hardware and thought it’d be worth a look in there for bird netting. no dice. the guy trying to help me was running through alternative products in his mind, actually suggested cheesecloth before conceding that would be dumb.

but i appreciated the earnestness so i bought some potting soil and a few other seed packs: early summer crookneck squash, straight eight cucumbers and cilantro. i know i’ll have to grow that inside.

or did i buy the cilantro at the other place? i forget now, don’t feel like checking. that would be dumb.

i brought mom the day lilies and dwarf tomato plant i’d bought her. took the back way and the sun was blinding me at that weird intersection with the discount barber’s and corner store. i missed an inconsequential stop sign and slammed on my breaks. soil went everywhere.

often when i’m driving i think about how i’m overdue for an accident. and i think about how mom was worried i wouldn’t be cut out for driving when i first started. my head’s always somewhere else.

[gardengournal]

may fifteenth

i’ve really been talking up my bok choy crop. ron and i talked recipes over dinner. he cooked this delicious chicken with spinach, artichoke, feta cream sauce and invited me to join him. bok choy came up another time, i can’t remember. but anyway i really hope it comes through for me.

i’m telling myself i’ll get up tomorrow to do some gardening in the morning. in fact, yeah, i’ll go to bed soon. the weather’s so beautiful right now, it’ll be wonderful to get outside. i’ll make a mango smoothie first. this is a great plan.

i spent most of the day today looking for things to worry about. i have work to catch up on but no fires to put out today with tax stuff, which is great. it’s hard to concentrate the time though when i sit down to check in on that stuff. i really just need a complete break from it soon. 

i’ve got everything i need to build my editing pc except the case. that’s my next big project. i’m excited to do the build. and then i have no more excuses: i have to start cutting. and i will! i will. i will.

boundaries came up a lot today. i spent most of the day with a creativelive seminar in the background talking about how to “make more money and discover your worth,” and boundaries were discussed there. cam wanted to start having weekly meetings to talk about the hayride podcast and i said no. i’m glad i was honest about how that was going to make me crazy, but i need a way to set my boundaries without being a dick about it. like, be firm but not make a big deal about it. i explain myself too much.

that’s another thing to be working on, and now’s the time. i am picking up momentum with the things i want to be doing. getting going where i want to go. i even ran today, like i said i would.

[gardengournal]

may fourteenth

as anticipated, mom was not feeling in doing brunch or much of anything today. so instead i invited the boys over to eat the food here. we spent most of the afternoon in the back yard. phil came over too, and joe had a new friend who wanted to see my garden.

i got like defensive about it. about how many plants i don’t have in the ground yet, about possibly over-estimating how much direct sunlight certain areas get, about not having a net around the blackberries yet to prevent birds from picking them off when they start fruiting.

and going to explain myself like “well really this is just kind of my own personal lab and i find it relaxing and restorative to spend time in the garden” yadda yadda... overkill. trying to justify it. why?

oh and julie tells me the blackberries aren’t coming anyway since i only have one bush. she knows this is true of blueberries and reckons blackberries are the same: gotta have another one around to cross pollinate if theres going to be fruit. 

so i’ve got to look into that.

[gardengournal]

may thirteenth

ok i went and checked it out and everything’s fine. i mean for the most part.

i pulled a few weeds from the bed with the lettuces in it but then remembered that i’d scattered some beet seeds and maybe something else so  i didn’t get too aggressive with it. i have to remember what beet seedlings look like, in comparison to weeds at least.

there are a couple of sprouts that definitely seem like melons, maybe watermelon. that large, thick and rounded leaf they have. i’ll keep an eye on those and maybe move them elsewhere if they keep at it.

the compost pile could use a turn but first i want to cut that nasty root out from the bottom of it. when i went to dig up compost to use when prepping the beds for this season i ripped out the bottom board from my compost bin and just dug in and down. so i encountered this thick orange root that wouldn’t budge when i pulled. it’s whatever that invasive vining stuff is all up the fence i think. or maybe belonging to that tree next to the compost bin. 

well anyway i haven’t done anything about it yet, in the meantime i’m covering the hole i made with the upturned wheelbarrow and a bin full of bricks that’s inexplicably been around for a while. and when i throw things on top they land right in the hole where the good stuff came from. eggshells and fruit and things that look like they could never be dirt, but it won’t be long before they are. really, compost is a magical thing.

[gardengournal]

may twelfth of the following year

so much for committing to it. i’ll try again.

stuff’s in the ground, we’ve had a real spring with threats of frost as recently as last week. 

well not everything’s in. i should have started more seeds by now but will still give it a shot. and i’ve got some potato slips i bought at a.j. rahn when i went there last month. lots of great plants, i had to exercise some restraint. 

the tomatoes were real young so i passed on those. i’ll pick them up this weekend maybe, at the plant sale at trinity. mom wanted to go, but she’s sick now. my fault i think. 

god i’m glad i’m out of that now. miserable. to just feel like, i don’t know, depressed. now there’s just some lingering snot still but i want to live again, so that’s better.

i haven’t been in the garden since getting sick two weeks ago. only spied over the fence when going to my car, finding that jackie’s breached the fence and gone digging. too sloppy a job to be any other creature. my bok choy seedlings are scattered, might have to re-sow that row. 

i’m back to rows now, despite my efforts to fully embrace advanced permaculture design principles right off the rip. i needed to control the environment more to get a better sense of what i’m dealing with first.

so it’s going to be good this year. i’ve got strawberries, blackberries and sage back from last year, and some ideas built off of what i’ve learned so far. no growing things i don’t want to eat. and i even read up on varieties when picking plants for my plan.

this will be the last garden i grow here, if things go the way i’m thinking.

[gardengournal]

inaugural entry

this is the second year i’m growing vegetables and it’s already going way better than last season, when i knew nothing and made a partially edible mess.

i’m writing this as a record so next year i won’t forget all the dumb stuff i did that i shouldn’t repeat, and the weird stuff i did that i should. 

it’s online and public for reasons i haven’t yet identified. something to do with accountability, i guess... a commitment to write rather than succumb to the insistent sense i have that all art is vanity.

this garden is in covington, kentucky and measures roughly 12′ x 20′. there are two 4′ x 4′ raised beds in the middle that i made new this year, and planting area all along the border.  

i sheet mulched over the winter and man there are so many fat worms living there now. i recommend it.

there’s a 5′ tall fence on one long side, a slightly taller maybe 6′ fence along the back with a couple old wooden ladders leaning against it, and i put up a 2′-ish wire fence along the other sides to prevent the dogs i hang out with from haplessly ruining everything with their unwanted and indiscriminate fertilizer applications. if you know what i mean.

i made a couple little gates that i was very proud of last year but now i mostly just step over to get in.

i’m bored already. alright, we’ll see how long this lasts.