Garden Update 2010

[Pots of potting soil waiting to be watered.]

Gardening! Gardening is, to me, a very tedious way to get cheap food. Occasionally there are moments of joy and discovery ("Pumpkin flowers are gorgeous!" "Wow, if you plant a strawberry plant, eventually you'll get strawberries! And they're so tasty!"), but mostly I do it to get food. That's why I don't plant flowers or do any... landscaping.

(Although I did totally hack away at my rental-house rose bush this last fall. That thing must not have been pruned in at least 5 years. It's already starting to grow again! AKA, Yay, I didn't kill it!)

This year I bought heirloom seeds off Etsy. Last week I planted 34 little pots of seeds to start my plants indoors. (There's a slight possibility that's way too many.) Sage, basil, tomato, butternut squash, bell pepper, cucumber, and zucchini. The snow peas need to go into the garden yesterday. The green beans and cilantro will wait until it's warmer.


I used pots I found while curb shopping. I had a little problem to overcome (and we'll see if I do yet) -- If I left the pots on my dining room window sill, Babby would be able to get into them, or else I'd have to keep her out of the kitchen all the time.

But hey, my pantry was kind of sparsely populated. Maybe I could move stuff around and fit them in there. Indeed I could. I bought a florescent light and rigged it up with the help of my husband (good thing someone in the house can tell when a power drill is spinning the wrong direction). Lovely.


Oh, and some sage on the sill above the kitchen sink.


And on Saturday I kinda tilled up a small flower bed on the side of the house for herbs later.

I also started a compost heap several months ago. I was very discouraged about it when, after both of this winter's snowfalls, the compost heap didn't seem to be melting the snow on top of it. (Properly-decaying compost heaps are warm.) But when I went out to turn it the other day, I found brown, dirt-looking stuff towards the bottom that smelled all earthy! Hey! That's compost! Cool!