On St. Patrick's Day We Wear Green Thumbs
I am terribly neglectful of my garden, but every year when it starts turning green I get all ambitious in my backyard. "Pumpkins over here and lettuce over there and potatoes in this bed and herbs in these containers!" It gets a little out of hand.
The sage plant made a decent comeback this spring despite the false warm weather in February and struggling through some freezes after its initial growth.
Invariably only half of what I plant actually grows into anything useful, but still every spring I get this urge to plant plant plant! So on Sunday after a 12 mile long run I pulled out the garden tools and toiled.
Did you know that forsythias are in the olive family?
Daffodils mean "time to plant!"
Weeding and turning the soil was its own task - one which uncovered two snakes and one big lizard. Then there was the matter of the composter*; after the two snakes I wasn't eager to stick my hand into dark places, so I worked on a method to scoop out the good soil with hand tools.
I can't claim much expertise with my composter*, but I do have a lot of enthusiasm for it. What's not to love? If you consider the tons of organic waste that is lost to landfills alongside toxins and non-biodegradable refuse then that scary Wall-e* world full of trash piles dominated by dirty robots and perky cockroaches can seem a little too close for comfort.
Of course McCrae had to pull out a bottle of Wicked Weed to speed along the work.
"Hops are a wicked and pernicious weed"
Ryder's version of "helping" was chewing pine cones.
And I eagerly planted, and then promptly forgot where I planted stuff. #oops
Hopefully this year I'll avoid any fiascos like dead tomato vines or insanely hot jalapeños. After all, the third year is the charm, right?
I actually had to pull out my huge rosemary bush because it was dying from cramped quarters and too much rain early this year. Hopefully this replacement fares well.
Hey dog, I see you eyeing my garden. Don't eat the greens!
I see more pesto in my future! And caprese salad!
Two years ago my arugula did quite well; I'm hoping for a repeat.
Oh shoot.
I forgot I planted onions last year until I pulled this up and discovered a lovely red onion bulb. It had already started dedicating the root resource to the plant though, so I split the bulb into three to try to propagate it.
How does your garden grow this year? Anybody else doing any composting? Let me know!
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