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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

adventures in urban gardening, take 3

I grew up with a big old garden out back. Everyone had one. If you didnt you were kinda lazy or rich or something. I would pick green peppers when they were barely a mouthful and eat them, whole, or the little tiny brussel sprouts which tasted terrible but looked exactly like mini-cabbages for some fairy tea party play.

This was my childhood.

Nestled under the lilac bushes, blooms long gone, in the heat of a July day, sun filtering through the leaves, with fairy friends beside me, eating snap peas off the vine or tiny cherry tomatoes, still warm from the sun, drinking water from the garden hose to wash the feast down.

Perhaps these memories are why I cannot for the life of me let the dream of an urban garden die, as my tomatoes did around mid-August of last year, fruitless, stunted, pathetic.

Here was our first effort, at our old place where we had NO yard space. Growing spinach and greens in rain gutters strung up on the side of a fence or house. Brilliant, right? Wrong. Apparently one needs to water like crazy with this set up. They withered and died approximately 2 weeks after sprouting.

Last years effort, well, I blogged about that. Remember the five marble sized potatoes? Yes, they shriveled up uneaten on my window sill. I threw them away a month later, disheartened.

I wasn't even going to bother this year. New baby coming and all that. Plus we have the largest farmers market in the state a mere mile away. Who needs to grow produce when you can buy beautiful greens and herbs and tomatoes for just dollars every weekend?? But, I couldn't help myself. MUST. GARDEN. MUST. GARDEN.

Last year the real problem was the sun, that is, our yard has none. Just one little patch on the side lawn. So. I had this brilliant idea. Growing a garden in tubs! Better yet, putting the tubs in our unused wagon sitting down in the basement to tow around the yard, following the sun and also ensuring that our rented patch of grass does not die.

I think it just might work.

so far we have...tomatoes in the tubs (old barrels from getting
apples last fall at an orchard) some sage in the planter with the flowers,
some random flowers from seeds (dont remember what they are!),
a pot of mint (hmmm), some mung beans (i think?)
and the prickly plant is a pineapple! which we have been rooting inside
from a pineapple top for a year and finally planted.
yes, it will grow a real pineapple. read here if you want to try.


little miss LOVES watering. here she is diligently dumping rain water from
her swim pool even though it was raining all morning, and started raining
again as we played outside...

in demonstration of how my children are so different,
here is little man, playing in the rain (mere sprinkles and
80 degrees)


and here is little miss, playing in the rain.
HA HA HA.


1 comments:

  1. PS i know i am posting a ton lately. you know the real reason why? what? you dont care? well, i am gonna tell you anyway...i am leaving my babies for a whole weekend and am somewhat anxious about it. they will be with dada. but still. i cant help but worry. hence the anxious posting. maybe i should put the effort into cleaning my house....nah, not THAT anxious.

    ReplyDelete

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