Where to start?
In mid-March, with spring just around the corner in the southeast and warm weather on my mind due to an upcoming Caribbean vacation, I decided to plant a garden.
People that know me well would take a deep breath at this point, as I'm known to dive into my latest obsession quickly and with endless enthusiasm. Since my college graduation four years ago, I've spent a year in Greece, fostered kittens, delved into baking, and tried my hand at refinishing furniture. Each new passion flared and then fizzled within a year, leaving me with new skills but nothing to occupy my time. This inevitability, however, does nothing to keep me from jumping headfirst into my next new project. So I jumped.
I usually limit my planting to plants purchased from Wal-Mart and the local hardware store, Renfrow's. But in March, I couldn't wait. And I wanted to be more specific about what I planted - the varieties I could get already sprouted wouldn't do. Inspired by a book I'd found at the library (where else, as a new librarian?), I decided to purchase seeds and sprout them myself. From Vertical Vegetables & Fruits: Creative Gardening Techniques for Growing Up in Small Spaces, I selected the varieties I wanted to grow: Patio Baby Eggplants, French Orange Hybrid Melons, National Pickling Cucumbers, Lincoln Peas, Blue Lake Beans, and Waltham Butternut Squash. I also sprung for strawberry plants so that I could have the Mara des Bois variety, a hybrid developed in France. Then, I waited anxiously for their arrival.
Just days before I was leaving town, the seeds arrived. I looked through the envelope giddily, reading seed packages and opening them to inspect the seeds. I had just enough time to plant the seeds in their individual peat pots and drop them off with my grandfather to "babysit" for the week that I was away. I supplemented with seed packets that I'd picked up while waiting: Sugar Snap peas, Early Scarlet Globe radishes, Purple Coneflowers, Red Cored Chantenay carrots, True Lavender, and a Lettuce blend.
I chose peat pots for easy transplanting (plus they looked very garden-y) and used bagged top soil, estimating with my fingers the proper planting depths provided on the seed envelopes. With instructions to keep them well-watered, they were left in the kitchen window, and I set out for a warmer climate.
In mid-March, with spring just around the corner in the southeast and warm weather on my mind due to an upcoming Caribbean vacation, I decided to plant a garden.
People that know me well would take a deep breath at this point, as I'm known to dive into my latest obsession quickly and with endless enthusiasm. Since my college graduation four years ago, I've spent a year in Greece, fostered kittens, delved into baking, and tried my hand at refinishing furniture. Each new passion flared and then fizzled within a year, leaving me with new skills but nothing to occupy my time. This inevitability, however, does nothing to keep me from jumping headfirst into my next new project. So I jumped.
I usually limit my planting to plants purchased from Wal-Mart and the local hardware store, Renfrow's. But in March, I couldn't wait. And I wanted to be more specific about what I planted - the varieties I could get already sprouted wouldn't do. Inspired by a book I'd found at the library (where else, as a new librarian?), I decided to purchase seeds and sprout them myself. From Vertical Vegetables & Fruits: Creative Gardening Techniques for Growing Up in Small Spaces, I selected the varieties I wanted to grow: Patio Baby Eggplants, French Orange Hybrid Melons, National Pickling Cucumbers, Lincoln Peas, Blue Lake Beans, and Waltham Butternut Squash. I also sprung for strawberry plants so that I could have the Mara des Bois variety, a hybrid developed in France. Then, I waited anxiously for their arrival.
Just days before I was leaving town, the seeds arrived. I looked through the envelope giddily, reading seed packages and opening them to inspect the seeds. I had just enough time to plant the seeds in their individual peat pots and drop them off with my grandfather to "babysit" for the week that I was away. I supplemented with seed packets that I'd picked up while waiting: Sugar Snap peas, Early Scarlet Globe radishes, Purple Coneflowers, Red Cored Chantenay carrots, True Lavender, and a Lettuce blend.
I chose peat pots for easy transplanting (plus they looked very garden-y) and used bagged top soil, estimating with my fingers the proper planting depths provided on the seed envelopes. With instructions to keep them well-watered, they were left in the kitchen window, and I set out for a warmer climate.
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| Photo: Amazon.com |
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