garden

Now that it’s October, the seeds I planted in April are coming up like mad.
I think they are confused.
With any luck, some will grow enough to do something interesting before it gets too cold.

I asked my mom if she wanted to do some soil testing. I’m starting to think the dirt is lacking something vital, because this year should have been better.

It’s been so rainy this year, things are coming up grudgingly, except for the weeds, of course. It’s rather discouraging.
I went to the farmer’s market today and bought pineapple sage, creeping dwarf thyme and finally found some tarragon. It’s been a bad year for tarragon, and this is the first I’ve seen of it.

Things sprouting a bit outside, now that it’s warmer and not quite so wet. Very sporadic still, though.

Bought some chicken wire, but haven’t put it up yet. Some of my catnip seeds have finally sprouted, though!

Planted a bunch of herbs and flowers yesterday, but the squirrels have already dug up about half of the dirt in the pots, the little furry jerks. Time to buy some chicken wire to bend over the pots for a while.
EDIT: I have been blaming the squirrels unreasonably. Turns out a neighbor’s little boy who is often in trouble was the culprit. Chicken wire still applies, as does a talk with the landlord and the boy’s parents. Not the first time he’s been caught ruining other people’s garden efforts, either. Pretty sure he was the reason nothing came up last year, now. Not amused.

Time to buy seeds. I think this year I will do herbs and flowers at my place, and vegetables on my mom’s plot. It’s still been too cold to weed my area, but I bet next month will bring mild enough weather to decimate the mint and clover that is attempting lawn domination.

I spent most of the weekend over at my mom’s. There, laundry got done, dinners got made, preserves got preserved and the garden got weeded something fierce.

Laundry was important because I am still not up to an optimal number of workout clothes. Dinner tonight was clam spaghetti, modified to almost no fat in deference to my cranky digestive system.

Preserves were why I went over to help my mom, but my mom’s friend came over and wanted to do it. Peach preserves were made-some with Amaretto, some with vanilla, some by themselves and some with Grand Marnier or some similarly orange tasting alcohol. I brought home one of the vanilla ones.

Since I got bumped from doing preserves, I went out into the garden instead. The garden has needed weeding for at least a month. It was supposed to be a joint project with me and my sister, but she’s not gotten up to help care for it more than a couple of times since we put it in for my mom as a Mother’s Day gift back in May.

As a result, the clover was out of control and flowering, there were several official looking plants that were anything but, and some of the mint from the (always trying to spread) mint patch had taken root under the beans and near the flat parsley. The planted stuff hadn’t been thinned since the last time I did it well over a month ago.

The chard was a bust-slugs had eaten it all, pretty much. The nasturtiums were overrunning their beds, and the tomatoes were nothing to brag about, it being a bad year for tomatoes in this part of the world.

On the other hand, the carrots were thriving in spite of being crowded, the turnips were coming along just fine, the flat parsley was happy and I got several good handfuls of beet greens.The leeks also need thinning, but are growing away nicely in the meantime.

I worked for hours, clearing away clover, pulling up shallowly rooted plants that were crowding out the vegetables and yanking away several bristly broad-leaved dandelion looking things that hurt to touch without gardening gloves.

When I was finished, there was a noticeable difference-it was obvious that there were rows instead of undifferentiated entangled choking green. There was space in between the plants that were no longer fighting one another for room and sunshine. There was a sense of order and serenity to it again.

And I felt a measure of peace that has been missing from my life for the past month.

Off to weed again, clover is terrible this year. It’s behaving like a hydra.

Garden needs weeding, but I managed to thin the rows for the ones that are coming up. The turnips are out of control already.