I've had five glorious Sunday posts this month about One Fabulous Garden. I feel some pride in and love for my little green spaces in this bigoldcrazy world. (I don't know why it sounds like I'm writin' a country song every time I get to talkin' about my garden!) I burned a little frankincense and myrrh while listening to Native American flute jams and meditating with my toes touching that good growing place out back behind my house. I'm totally serious about this, friends. I know how hippie, new age, and redonkulous that reads, but I'm just a new age, redonkulous hippie. I have hopes for me as well as my lately planted garden. I don't expect that to make much sense if you come by my website for the deals and the frugal living. If you've sat a spell with Mother Blogger, you'll know what I mean.
how I get my meditative gardening groove on
The in-the-ground garden update
We have signs of life coming up through the lovingly tended soil! I was shouting like I had discovered gold back there. Mr. OFM came running and even the neighbors had to peek over the fence. We have sprouts popping up and I can't tell you how glorious that feels after this long month of watering and spreading alpaca beans! I kept telling myself that if nothing else, I'd have a spectacular space ready for a late summer crop or next year's garden, but lo and behold, we have plants bursting through the soil, anxious to be veggie goodness.
Cucumbers!
Zucchini!
More cucumbers!
Even more cucumbers just coming up through the soil!
Black beans!
More zucchini!
I know zucchini will sprout just about anywhere, under any conditions, but I have high hopes for my in-the-ground garden this year even if I did get everything sown a little late. I was expecting lettuce and spinach to pop up first. We'll see what happens next! I'm visiting my faboo friend at Honey Creek Hair this week and I am hoping she'll have some hair I can have. We have a family of beautiful bunnies living in the copse of woods between our house and the garden. They may be beautiful bunnies, but I don't want to share everything I'm growing with them. The Littles have plans for a scarecrow and I'll go with my Grandmom Amison's trusty pie pan clothesline as well. Fingers crossed we can keep the wildlife out of the garden now that we have plants above the ground.
Total magical happiness growing out back:
two zucchini
two black bean
three watermelon
seven cucumber
two zucchini
two black bean
three watermelon
seven cucumber
The container garden update
Meanwhile, the container garden is thriving under the love and attention of not one gardener, but three. My two youngest Littles are quite taken with all of these growings on right outside their back door. Seems like every morning, the plants have gotten taller and more vegetables are peeking out of the flowers that bloom before them. It's a magic with which video games and even the slip n' slide can't compete.
These are the two surviving watermelon seedlings that I was super worried about up until two days ago. They looked like they wouldn't make it after I transplanted them into the bookcase bed, but here they are growing bigger and bigger. It might have to do with the names the middle-Little gave them- Pollux and Castor.
The crookneck squash is simply thriving under these conditions. I've had success in the past with it, but I think we're gonna see a good bit of squash from this baby.
Meanwhile, Larry and Larry Boy (the cucumbers natch) are doing well. I'm thinking I'll be training them up the trellis by the end of this week.
Somehow, I've managed to grow a second pumpkin plant here. It must have split off or something. It's too late to thin it out to one plant. Well, maybe it isn't, but I'm not skilled enough to do that without killing what's there. We'll see how this goes.
Meanwhile, over on the salsa wall, we have plenty of jalapenos coming in!
I have six plants growing in one container. I think this is gonna get wild by the end of the summer.
The very first red pepper is coming in big and bold. The Littles can't wait to pick this baby. Patience pays, I keep telling them.
In the next couple of weeks, I am going to have a bounty of Roma tomatoes thanks to my topsy turvy containers. My red and orange peppers are just starting to flower as well.
The rosemary is thriving now that I've tranplanted it for what seems like the gajillionth time. She'll outgrow her pot before the summer ends and I'll be scrambling to find something big enough to hold her while she winters in the kitchen.
Same thing goes for Mr. Basil.
I'm pretty excited about making some pesto this week. I haven't had a plant big enough to pick off of in months! Check off those new leaves coming in... oh, I think we'll be enojoying pesto and tomato-basil dressing all summer.
I'll continue fertlizing once a week with alpaca bean tea. Everyone seems to be responding well to this. (I'm just proud of myself for not calling it poop once this whole post. Well, nevermind.) So far, so good with animals and insects, but we really don't have a lot of veggies yet. I think we'll get some bold bunnies soon. Our dogs are really, REALLY sensitive about any wildlife on the patio, so hopefully, they'll continue to help guard the beds. I'll sprinkle human hair around for good measure. we may add a scarecrow and some pie plates here just because I'll want to craft indoors the hotter it gets outside. :o)
I'll leave you with this, friends. I had a reader ask me if I really had a blueprint for my garden. She saw that I marked wherever I sowed plants with colored rocks, but she just couldn't believe I had a blueprint too. Well, this is my blueprint. It's messy and stained and scratched all over with notes and dates, but yep. I sure enough have a blueprint. Even with a garden as small as mine, I wouldn't be able to keep track of what was growing where without one. I'm just too addle brained to do that. I have a hard enough time remembering phone numbers and birth dates. I can't imagine being expected to identify what's growing where! Maybe blueprint is a misnomer. Maybe I should call it a garden map instead. Peace, B.
The total for the garden is still at $38, but if I don't find anything to use for the pie pan clothesline (to ward off my bunnies), I'll have to buy a wood pole and get it cut into several pieces. I have faith though in my ability to barter and/or scavenge. ;o)
