This girl!
Remember last August when I decided to try my hand at gardening? If you don't, visit the blog entitled There She Grows and then continue on here.
Last summer's first attempt was successful. I learned all the things NOT to do. I managed to harvest 6 whole green beans before white flies devoured my plants. I planted all my onions in the clumps that transplants came in and they never grew. So we took them apart and planted them seperate and then they died. The herbs lasted until winter frosts then they died also. And despite possesing one award winning Future Farmers of America jacket, Chris is little to no help at all. He never knows the answers to my questions and when I learn the hard way about something he always chimes in with " I know." When I ask him if he is just trying to Mr. Miyagi me he raises an eyebrow and claims " I knew when it happened."
Jerk.
What he really means is "I didn't know until right NOW, but now I am going to pretend I knew the whole time and was purposely Miyagi-ing you."
Double Jerk.
So when I planted the winter garden I ignored him and consulted the internet and my handy Western Garden Edibles book. I had never been through a "winter" in California and was unprepared for the temperature drop. Sure daytime lows are in the 60's but it really does drop to freezing over night. And that is how I lost everything. My broccoli bolted. My celery only grew tops, never bottoms. The garlic never grew at all and the white flies never stopped. Ever. I had an intense conversation with the master gardener at Green Acres, my favorite local nursery, about sprays and pesticides. He recommended an organic spray that I had already tried. It had seemed to make them multiply. I distinctly remember telling him, " No. I need poison. I want them dead, not to get an aromatherapy spa treatment." He asked if he could use that line when he teaches classes, I obliged.
Well on the first day of spring this year I dusted off my trowel and gloves and washed my pots. I hit up Green Acres and put a small dent in my bank account and got to work.
Oh hey. Angelina here. I started this blog on May 19 and just got back to it today. Whoops.
Anyhoo. If this was Little Spoon Garden 3 weeks ago, my has she grown! Just seeing this makes me want to hug my tomatillos! She is growing so big I already had to stake her :) And her little yellow flowers are darling.
I'm learning a lot about gardening. I love it. I can't wait for the day when I actually have a patch of grass of my own and I can learn about soil conditions and spacing and crops. I love coming home after work and pinching off a sprig of mint for my iced tea ( um.. or mojito). I love picking fresh basil and oregano to sauté with veggies for dinner. I wish I was growing all those veggies but I'm doing what I can.
When I planted back in March, I planted butter lettuce. I love butter lettuce. Turns out, snails do to. And sadly my first round of lettuce went to the snails. I was content just picking the snails up and flinging them in the bushes for a while, but they were relentless. The term snails pace is such a joke. Those mother effers are fast. Every day they were back. Every day I lost lettuce leaves. I was so frustrated I caved in and bought some snail killer.
I'm unhappy to report that they won that first battle and the entire war. Not only did they get the lettuce, I successfully killed them all with something terrifying called Corry's Slug and Snail Death. Then the perimeter of my patio was littered with 40 something snail shells. And than the lettuce bolted and I couldn't eat it anyway!
Don't be abhorred by my use of Snail Death. I never put it in contact with any of my plants. I lined one side of the perimeter of my patio and have only had one perimeter breach in 2 months. If the snails had any brains they could avoid it entirely and go through the two unprotected ends. There are also no children or pets present to poison, just snails.
Plus I am trying this organic non-pesticide Neem Oil spray to keep the aphids away. It's working. You know what seems to feed off it though? White Flies. I'm back to where I started with this problem.
Another gardening lesson learned is the truth about those Topsy Turvey pieces of crap. I bought one for strawberries and one for tomatoes. We haven't even used the tomato one because our tomatoes are growing gang busters in regular pots. I was going to plant cherry tomatoes in it but I gave them to the neighbor kid ( more on that later.) Chris loaded up the strawberry hanger and it was so heavy with soil that there is no way we could have safely hung it anywhere. It is pictured in the above photo but I threw the whole thing out shortly after. We had to sit it on the shelf and all it ever did was funnel water out of every single hole when you watered it. The pineapple sage grew well in it though. I dug that out and repotted it and it is delightful.
Another small gardening misadventure is that you should not buy anything called Grapefruit Mint. Sure, it smells lovely and sounds tangy and delightful. But no. Just no. Don't do it. It tastes like a peppercorn. And you don't want to toss it out because it is still alive. But you know you are never going to eat it. And yet you feed and water it and it grows giant and full and it is still on your patio taking up space and growing bigger and still tasting horrible no matter what you do. And WHY IS IT STILL ON MY PATIO? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS TERRIBLE PEPPER BARF PLANT?!
In closing, my neighbor kid is always peeking at my plants. He thinks they are the bees knees. So one day when I was out there watering them I started talking to him and his friend. I was telling them what the different plants were and how you could pick mint leaves off and eat them. They looked confused. I picked off some spearmint and peppermint leaves and started chewing while I picked more for them. They chewed and responded...
" Is this a toothpaste plant? This plant tastes like toothpaste."
And that is when I gave him my cherry tomato plant. He is growing it quite successfully and learning that food does not just appear at the grocery store. And hopefully that in this chicken vs. egg scenario, the plant always comes before the toothpaste.
