My quest to grow bigger, better and more vegetables in the community garden plot and to complement that production with edible landscape plants in my home garden is ever more earnest.
In my mind just now, I'm traipsing out to enjoy the sweet gentle breeze, the birds are chuckling with each other and zipping playfully around my chair. The new fence is crowded with a jumble of climbing roses that compete with each other to scent the garden. The new pickles are twirling their grabby tendrils up my purple ladder. Over at the community garden, amidst zinnias, marigolds and sunflowers, my bush beans and herbs and sweet onions and peppers and tomatoes and corn and squash are all compatibly thriving under just the right conditions. A gentle rain comes every other day, and the sun marches pleasantly across the sky.
By now, I am familiar enough with how garden fantasies escalate on a cold February day when I'm tucked into my sofa, drinking a cup of chicken soup beside a warm fire. It's a vision, thanks to pests and drought, that I have yet to realize, but I can always hope.
Realities nip at the legs of this fantasy. How to manage too much garden with little time? How to grow just the right amount of starter plants. How to know when to set the seeds? When to plant? How close can I plant the seedlings to maximize variety. Where should I buy my seeds? Who will share with me? Which plants are companions and which are enemies? Do I have enough pots? Are they big enough? How much potting soil should I have on hand? How is the compost coming along? When should I turn it? Will the worms survive if I up-end their tierra firma?
Today, I'm off to figure out an indoor seed growing system. I'm going to buy shelves and lights and power cords and s-hooks and chains and I'm going to string it all together and start my garden indoors. The Putterer
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