New beginnings

I'm going to step back from the big patio plans and the electricity drama for a post that spans last year and this year--with lots of pictures--to talk about our garden and some baby trees. Last year, we really delved into gardening (probably because our spring...summer...fall...etc. suddenly opened up when all our plans got canceled). I'd already paid a small donation to the Arbor Day Foundation for something like 12 baby trees and we'd already ordered some vegetable seeds and started them in the house. So we were already set for something sort of resembling success.

We planned what would go where. We learned pretty quickly that squash gets way to big to put in the middle and that "container" tomato plants are too tiny and did not make sense for our big garden, We had great luck with snap peas, cherry tomatoes (a red variety--I forget which one specifically), and (diva) cucumbers. The squash was a mixed bag (they seemed to stay small, likely because they got so cramped, but they were still tasty and quite easy to sneak into a few smoothies), as were the radishes (we must have planted them too close because most never got very big). The  "midnight snack" cherry tomatoes were fine but no one really liked the taste. The eggplants, peppers, container variety of tomatoes, and carrots failed. Not sure why, but none of those were anything we really cared about enough to try again.

Now as to the trees--they arrived about a month later than they were supposed to thanks to COVID. When they finally arrived, 12 bare-root sticks that had a paint dot on them to identify what was what, we honestly had no idea where to put them. But they had to go in the ground. 

So we put some around the lawn after clearing a little space in the grass and we put a few in the garden. And I knew, just KNEW, I'd have no idea what was what or where. And thus: a map. Each kind of tree got a code and the new ones were outlined in pink.

Within even a few weeks, thanks to nibbling birds or squirrels and other misfortunes, most were broken in two. We even found one in the garden completely dug up (thanks a lot, fence). It didn't look great. And now, fast forward a year and we have two hawthorns left. But we'll get to that later.

Meanwhile, back to the garden. This year, we tried something new, after we realized how much we did NOT like to go outside to water in July and August while the mosquitoes feasted on us. Irrigation!

Armed with some hoses and spikes, as well as a fancy timer (see: not wanting to go outside to water), we installed a system through the yard and into the garden to keep the veggies happy.

It obviously worked. Our garden went from this:

To this:

Of course I have to show you some of the results, too:

See the one purple bean. Yeah that was the only one...

When the season was ending, we even attempted to grow a late fall garden, mapped out here (we like maps, apparently). We hauled in the irrigation system though, figuring it would get a lot less brittle if we kept it in the shed all winter.

                        

How did it go? Well here's the funny thing. Nothing really seemed to happen--maybe we planted it too late and there wasn't enough sun. One of the broccolis, which we started from tiny plants and not seeds, did eventually develop a head, but it was so tiny it was literally a single piece I would normally cut my broccoli head into. So we ignored it. Until today.

Yesterday, I headed into the garden to start clearing it out for this year. And to my surprise, there was enough broccoli and kale to harvest. The broccoli was just starting to bolt but we decided to give both a try. And sautéd with some olive oil and garlic, this was our delicious side dish tonight at dinner:

Having cleared out the last of the fall harvest as well as all the weeds and what roots I could find, I roto-tilled the soil and added two wheelbarrow's full of compost. So here we are, ready to go for another year.

                                                    

I decided to create a better plan for our growing zone than just "put them in the ground" or "start them in the house, then plant them in the ground." The seed company (Burpee this year--last year it was a brand I can't remember) says what time to plant for which zone, so I might as well use that information. I labeled each packet and put them back in order, so I could remember what happens when. It looked like we'll plant a few early birds in about a week, do another batch in mid-April, and then another batch in early-to-mid-May.

                                           

Here's a close-up of what I jotted down:  

I started the tomatoes earlier this month in pots on the window sill and added a bit more light in the blue/purple spectrum to help them stop leaning toward the window. I started some snap peas as well, more as an experiment to see which do better when we put them outside next week--the seeds or the plants. And upon finally mapping out this plan, I'm realizing I need to start the herbs indoors ASAP and just need to dye some Easter eggs to get some empty cartons for start pots.

Back to those trees, from earlier in the post. I planted 12 last May and a mere 2 remain. This Hawthorn, smack in the middle of the lawn and another in the garden.

Though the stick was about 18'' high, the leaves were all only at the bottom. It turned out that the rest of the stick was so brittle and dead that it snapped just above the leaves while I was working in the garden.

So there's a 5'' Hawthorn in there now that I managed to not rototill. Though it obviously isn't going to live in the garden forever, it's so tiny that we'll leave it there at least another year to see if it can get bigger and stronger before we put it anywhere else.