Here is the tiny plot that I have maintained at my parent's house. This will be the seventh year I guess that I have planted something or the other in this space. The soil is telling- it is so loose and rich in some areas of this garden that it would be easy on a dry day to just plunge your hand into the earth and wiggle your fingers around like little worms. There are worms, too, and lots of them. This is such a good sign! The worms come up to the soil surface and eat the compost/organic materials and then dig down into the soil only to leave a rich and marvelous worm casting to improve the soil for future plantings. These wiggly guys are such good friends that I'll have to photograph them all just so you can meet them. The things that have grown the best at the Westerville plot so far have been tomatoes, zucchinis, spearmint, nasturtium, and especially the bell peppers last year. We planted a dozen heirloom tomato plants there last year, though, and I think they were shaded too much because the plant growth was amazing but the fruiting not. I have tried to grow root veggies in the past and failed miserably- carrots, onions, beets- you name it, I didn't have any luck with it. This was, of course, before I learned about soil preparation so it is no wonder I had no tubers. This year I've planted a bunch of onion sets at my mom's request, and since they were resubmitted to the soil by the plunging method mentioned before I imagine they are going to flourish. The second round of spinach has also been planted in Westerville, it will follow up the potted spinach we have going here in Clintonville quite perfectly. It will be interesting to compare the flavors and textures of pot-grown versus earth-grown greens. My mind never knows what to do- half the time I hit space once after ending a sentence and the other half I space twice- does anyone know the appropriate spacing? - The best I've saved for last.. here are some pictures of the fifty some pea plants (shelling and sugar snap) that have shot themselves up along the fence at the Westerville plot. Keep in mind that these are the peas everyone thought I was crazy for planting- they were in the ground just after valentine's day! Then we got a "blizzard" and these little green balls of fury and fire fought through the snow for weeks and still managed to surprise we just a few weeks ago with their steadfast emergence. Those Mendelian genetics are something else indeed. I'd say the plants I've photographed are nearing two weeks out of the soil. Until next time.....
Winter Poem
by Nikki Giovanni
once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
still and was a flower
The Westerville Plot
A shelling pea plant from above
Another view- the dark areas have been planted and drain much better than the compacted pathways. The bed in the foreground has onion sets.
Tallboy
Peas and Thanks
Twins
The rest of my parent's yard
listening to:
goodbye
