I love plants.
I love to eat them, I love to cook them, I love to smell them, I love to look at them, I love to water them, and occasionally I love to destroy them. (Some plants are real bastards.)
But, let’s be honest – the part I love most is the eating.
So last year I became a gardener.
You may already know that I live in Arizona. And not in lovely foresty Flagstaff, Arizona. Not in red-rocky, vortexy Sedona, Arizona. Not even in dunes-y, just a few blessed hours to San Diego-y Yuma, Arizona.
No, I live in sweaty deserty Tempe, Arizona.
You’ll be forgiven for thinking that all we can grow here are cactus and sunburns, because I thought that too until my sweet friend and local domestic hero Kelli proved me wrong by growing so much food.
So last fall I cleared out a section of my front porch planter and had crazy amazing success with lettuce. C-r-a-z-y. I admit I was shocked when a few seedlings emerged, but I nearly died from joyous disbelief while eating the first of many home-grown salads.
Pure joy.
Maybe I do have a green thumb, I exclaimed.
Maybe I can live off the land!?!
Then in March I planted a spring garden. I (*some men I paid*) even removed (*sawed, axed, and yanked out with a truck*) the horrible pineapple-shaped palm-like thingy with needle-sharp frond points at exactly neck height which was conveniently located on the path to my front door, and replaced it with much-friendlier and less-law-suit-threatening cucumber and bell pepper seeds.
And those seeds performed just exactly like poo.
Yes a pest got the cucumbers. The peppers have no excuse.
Which is to say, I have not yet eaten one cucumber or one pepper, so they totally drool and lettuce totally rules.
Hence my dreams to live off the “land,” which at my house is actually mostly concrete thanks to my two large and wonderful patios (patiophile alert), were left unfulfilled in the spring 2010 gardening season, and yet these dreams are not entirely crushed.
Therefore I go about planning Fall Garden 2010 with high hopes and great confidence.
I am aware that the soil in the former pineapple palm spot may not be the Greatest Soil Ever, especially for vegetables, so I’ll be working it over, adding more veggie-friendly soil, and maybe adding nitrogen and phosphate if I’m feeling fancy, motivated, and potentially, rich (my guess is these things are not cheap).
I may do the same to the soil where the lettuce grew last fall, in which I also planted pepper seeds for the Poo Performing Spring Garden 2010. And like their pooey siblings, these seeds failed to produce even one measly bright fleshy fruit as thanks for my magnanimous acts of freeing them from the little paper envelope and tending to them so lovingly. I told you – some plants are just plain bastards.
I let the fountain grass take over when it became clear the peppers had given up on reproduction.
And yet I press on, ready to raise up another batch of potentially ungrateful but hopefully delicious vegetable children.
Kitty insisted on inspecting the seed selection.
Sweetdena’s Fall Garden 2010
Total gardening space: 20ish square feet
Arugula, rocket salad, roquette
Lettuce, romaine
Carrot, short ‘n’ sweet
Radish, white icicle
But wait, there’s more!
My parents recently bought a house situated on a veritable Garden of Eden just 15 minutes away from me, and Ma and I have big plans for vegifying a plot of it.
This week we’ll be preparing the area for food creation and next week we’ll be sticking those wonder-producing little dots of embryonic material the earth.
Ma & Pa Kettle’s Fall Garden 2010
Total gardening space: 100ish square feet (or really, as much as we can handle)
Lettuce, romaine
Lettuce, prizeleaf
Parsley, extra curled dwarf
Pea, wando
Pea, sugar snap
Carrot, short ‘n’ sweet
Radish, white icicle
Brussels Sprouts, dwarf improved*
*I read I shouldn’t expect much from these here in Phoenix, but my handsome boyfriend loves to say “Brussels Sprouts” (with a huge emphasis on the pluralizing “s” in “Brussels”) so much that I’ve gotta plant them. It will bring him so much joy to ask me every single day how the Brussels Sprouts are doing.
Onion, evergreen long white bunching
Onion, yellow granex hybrid (brought to me from Hawaii by a super-amiga)
Conclusion: I’m about to get in way over my head, gardening-wise.
If you have any gardening tips, please (please please) share them!
I need all the help I can get to keep garden suckiness at bay.
Woo! I love this post! This makes me so happy. If you need grunt work done, I’m your gal.
My tips:
1. Go to starbucks often and beg for coffee grounds. Distribute generously.
2. See if any of your friends compost. ALso, post on craig’s list. Often gardeners will share. Add this to your earth.
3. Consider getting the soil tested. Because you don’t know what was planted there long-term, you could be eating someone else’s nonsense, like heavy metals. The county extension office will do a soil test for you at minimal expense.
4. Water. Be patient. Watch. Be patient. Talk to your plants. Be patient. and then enjoy the harvest!
So, so proud of you my friend!
Thank you for the compliments and tips!!
I will definitely follow them all and consult you often. I’ve been especially interested in soil testing but hadn’t even considered the heavy metal possibility. Yeeuck.
Bonus – Lauren and her bf are starting a compost heap at his place, so hopefully I’ll have a built-in supplier in no time! :)
If you need advice on gardening, knock at my door! Last year, my garden was sooo big I had to sell veggies to friends and neighbors! Don’t be shy, contact me on my email address and ask anything about gardening! I’ll be glad to help if I can! Gardening is so much fun, rewarding and god does it taste good in your plate! Living off the land? I provide for my own water, made my own queso blanco (cheese) and soap!
Don’t stop gardening!
Hello Martine!
You are so lucky to have such a large and fertile garden. You can definitely expect emails from me this fall!
Also, I tried to comment on your blog but the profile selection part couldn’t verify my address or something… I’m not sure what I did wrong but I’ll try again tomorrow. :)
I’m jealous. Financial priorities have me sharing a yardless apartment right now, but one day I’d like to get dirty and see what I can grow. Good luck!
Thanks! I only have a few little squares of dirt thanks to my front & back patios, but it turns out they’re good enough for food growing. Maybe you could try one of those topsy-turvy indoor hanging gardens? I don’t know how messy they are, or if they bring bugs into the house, but it could be worth a shot…
You can now leave comments on my blog… realized that the comment page was not activated :(
And I also gave you a tip for sprouting chickpeas on Twitter.
(and yes, Africa is so beautiful!)
Tonight I’ll soak the chickpeas and will try to get them to sprout. They might be too old, so I might need to buy more… we’ll see!
The end goal is sprouted hummus! :)
I’m a super-amiga :-)
hope yer seeds aren’t expired or something :-)
Yes you are. :) They might say they’re expired, but I won’t let that stop me!
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
Thanks a bunch! I’m trying to get into the groove of posting 2-3 times per week. Each new subscriber is great motivation! :)