That last paragraph is brought to you courtesy of a full week with no professional writing or editing responsibilities. You are welcome.
(David Dye -- digression: the local NPR station broadcasts Live at the World Cafe from 10 to noon every day, which is sooo excellent and almost makes up for the fact that it makes me suffer through an hour of Democracy Now at 9, which is painful non-journalism that makes me a little embarrassed to hold my particular political leanings -- uh, where was I. Oh yes, my pal David is interviewing Aimee Mann, who apparently has a new album. I did not know this! Exciting news!)
OK, so. Gardening. Our progress so far:
Note that my plot is one of the only ones that is not fenced in yet, which should be remedied this weekend. Do not note the three-quarters of the plot that is still made up entirely of very aggressive weeds. The fence has to come first, you see, and is slated for construction tomorrow if J. and I can get our acts together.
Here is the success story:
Arugula! I put seeds into the ground and they grew into arugula. I have tasted it and it tastes good. This whole thing is sort of confounding, isn't it?
Here is the not-quite-success-but-not-yet-giving-up story:
This is where some herbs should be. None of the herbs ARE, exactly -- yet or maybe ever (spying on other people's plots reveals that they should at least be poking up by now, especially the basil) -- but I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't really tell what is a baby herb and what is a baby weed. And that I am trying to differentiate by... eating things to see what they taste like. I know! I know. What if the person who had this plot last year planted nightshade? I will go the way of an Agatha Christie murder victim! Death by garden! Or rather, death by stupidity, but I will go down happy.
So can any of you tell what in this picture could be a burgeoning cilantro or oregano seedling, say, and what is a weed? Clearly there is a lot of rogue mint running around, but do you see anything else in that picture that I shouldn't be yanking up?
I'm not terribly concerned, because I fully intend to buy some basil seedlings and stick them in the ground for try No. 2 if the seeds never sprout. I can live without the rest of the herbs if necessary (and my mint, of course, is the only herb I planted that is gracing us with its nascent presence) but I refuse to grow tomatoes without basil.
In our next installment: Tomato cages, fruit-patterned shelf-paper, a fascinating meeting with my new HR department and a pre-DMV pep talk.
3 comments:
None of that looks like anything edible to me, but your arugula looks really good!
Also, your ground looks really, really dry.
Have you tried picking some, crushing it in your fingers, and smelling it? That's how I can tell which is which. But none of that looks like my oregano, and I see no basil.
(you can buy oregano for fairly cheap as seedlings, too)
I'm not sure any of that looks like herbs... of course every time I plant basil and oregano seeds, it rains something crazy, so I don't know what those plants are supposed to look like....
glad you're getting settled in! I'll have to post some garden pics soon.
Hrm. I agree with Shannon... none of that stuff looks like the stuff I've ever grown. Although, I had really nice-looking cilantro 2 weeks ago, in the little plastic container it came in. I prepared a nice big container for it on the porch, put it in there... and 20 minutes later it was dead, dead, dead. I don't know if it was too hot or what, but it just flopped over and died. It was amazingly quick.
Also, I second the "dry" part. Get thee some water, STAT!
I've never been very good with growing herbs from seeds, so I always start with seedlings. My basil and mint are growing nicely in containers. I also planted 4 kinds of tomatoes, green peppers, zucchini, white eggplant and pickling cukes (which sound gross to me, but Todd wanted them. I don't think he intends to pickle anything, so I'm not entirely sure what we're going to do with those. I hate cucumbers and everything pickle-related). Oh, and buttercrunch lettuce. Seeing your row of arugula makes me wish I had more than my one measly lettuce plant.
I can't wait to see more pictures and follow your garden's progress!
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