Gardening

I am very excited that I might actually have a real garden in my backyard this summer. I have done all of the prep work and put in the stakes for the tomatoes, and now all that’s left is putting the plants in the ground (and managing to have them not be killed by squirrels or lack of water).

Now if you are thinking that I am a proper locavore who is doing this to be closer to nature or organic gardening or some such, let me tell you how I first got into gardening. My sister and I went to Space Camp, so we got on a list that was invited to try growing Seeds from Space! Sorry, let me say it again = Seeds From Spaaace! *glee*

So before the Challenger explosion, a satellite (the Long Duration Exposure Facility – LDEF) was installed into orbit. The plan was to see how well various construction materials would withstand orbit in space, and they contracted out space to non-government experiments as well. And one of the experiments was to test 25 pounds of seeds.

So we received our packet of seeds, and we weren’t told whether they were space seeds or control. And we got out a little lab notebook and grew them. And it was awesome. They were delicious. My sister and I had never had read tomatoes ripened on a vine before. And we preserved seeds and observed the same strain of tomatoes for about three generations. And then we started adding other varieties and some hot peppers… and we had kept a garden ever since. And ever since I’ve moved to the city, I have been craving my own garden, instead of having to drive out to the suburbs to forage from my parents’ garden.

This year looks like success.

So I’m planning what to plant:

Garden

• 4 tomato plants
  • 2 early girl
  • 1 grape
  • 1 roma
  • I am really tempted to try to plant more, but I don’t really have the space, and I don’t know that I’ll be sharing the harvest with that many people
• hot peppers
  • 1 regular jalapeno
  • I saved seeds from my neighbor’s garden last year that had small jalapenos that turned red quickly
  • maybe something else
• Squash – I saved some delicata seeds last summer, so I’ll see if they sprout. Otherwise, I have no idea. But just 1 squash, whatever the variety
• Herbs
  • Basil – I hear it does especially well near tomato plants
  • Cilantro? I always manage to kill it in pots. Maybe it will do better in the ground
• onions? I have an onion that was sprouting that I properly rooted. I hear that alliums help deter insects

Small pots on my porch

• 6 – 4″ pots (need to buy 3 more to replace cracked ones)
  • dill
  • parsley
  • sage
  • thai basil
  • marjoram or savory
  • lovage
• 6 – 6″ pots (need to buy 2 to replace cracked ones – there was an incident with a dog with a loose leash on my porch last summer)
  • bronze fennel
  • more parsley?
  • more rosemary
  • lettuce
  • ?
  • ?
• up to 4 – 6-8″ pots (I have three plastic 6″ whose rims are too wide for the other plant stand)
  no plans yet for this stand

Step 3: Profit!

I want a whole field to plant. There are so many things that I just keep not even considering because I don’t have the space.