Oi it’s warm outside today. Very beautiful sunny spring day, but already too warm to do too much strenuous work out IN the sun. I spent an hour out there trying to reclaim that new tilled area from weeds and killing fire ants in the potato bed. I may have won the fire ant battle, but I did not get finished with the weeds. The weeds aren’t being too difficult, but the Bermuda grass that has invaded that space? Oh, it’s a pain. It took a year of constant diligence in the other two beds to finally eradicate the Bermuda grass once and for all, so even after I get what’s there now pulled out, the war will still be long.

I only came in for a little break and to drink some water, but now that I am sitting down, I don’t feel like going back out there. My hands are tired, I have gotten a bit of a sunburn, and I’m covered in fine dust. I think I’ll take a nice long shower and call it a day as far as gardening goes. I’ll just have to force myself to get out there in the morning to finish up, because it’s going to rain tomorrow night and Friday. I want to get the new bed, the potato bed, and the mounds cleared out and planted before then. It’ll save me having to water, and if I don’t, I won’t get to plant again until the dirt dries out a little. Considering I will be having a busy weekend, that means I likely wouldn’t get to do any planting until next week. I really need to get seeds in the ground now. I’m running so late!

So now my plan for the rest of the day is to clean up, be a bum, make dinner, and catch up on the last two night’s of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I don’t care if Lin wants to watch his news shows tonight, he’s just going to have to miss them. We are too far behind on watching shows that are much more entertaining than MSNBC.

Now to find the strength to go take that shower. The longer I sit here, the less I want to move. In fact, all I want to do is take a nap.

I got some seeds planted in the two main beds of the garden, and now the sprinkler is going and giving everything a nice deep drink of water. I followed no plan in my planting, didn’t pay any attention to companion planting rules, and just put stuff where there was room. I am beyond caring about companion planting or meticulous plans for where things need to go. I actually believe it just doesn’t matter. The seeds go into the good dirt, they are watered, and they will grow and produce or not.

Today some Black Seeded Simpson (lettuce) head lettuce, arugula, scallions, and pear and pineapple tomato seeds got stuck into the ground. Tonight I’m going to get my herb seeds started in paper pots, and by the time they are ready to transplant into the garden if the fava beans, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts haven’t show any sign of doing something more than sitting there sucking up resources and being green, most of them will be going away to make room for herbs and carrots and radishes. I’ll also be starting some tomato seeds, because I have decided to use some of the containers I was using when I started this vegetable garden experiment. One can never have too many tomato plants. Or tomatoes. I want a lot of tomatoes this year.^†

I got the old potato bed cleared out, except for one small fire ant mound I need to deal with in the morning, and those two tiny shriveled potato starts I found behind the stove (from my first harvest) have been planted. I don’t know that I truly expect them to come up at all, but I decided it was worth trying. Once the fire ants are gone, the other end of that bed will be the home of a few okra plants.

The mound area still needs to be cleaned up, which is where the beans are going to go, and the new area that was tilled and then not used during winter needs to be weeded too. I haven’t decided what to put there yet. Maybe the corn. Maybe just more onions, carrots, radishes, and herbs. Maybe something new and different. I haven’t decided yet.

I’m trying to be excited about the garden. I’m just not feeling it yet. Maybe once all the nasty weeds are gone and the fire ants are all dead and baby plants are starting to come up I’ll get excited. Right now, it just feels like a chore I’d rather not do. I’ll keep doing it though, because hope does spring eternal, and maybe this summer’s garden will make me happy. Maybe.

1. † Speaking of lots of tomatoes, I had lots of tomatoes last summer. Unfortunately, I was far too giving to nature’s critters, and they enjoyed more of our tomatoes than we did. This summer, I have decided to be selfish and will be using bird netting to keep the critters off my produce. [↩]

How about a better photo of those gorgeous carrots?

They did, in fact, taste just as good as they look. Therefore, I made potato, carrot, and broccoli soup for dinner. It was all very yummy.

So yet again, at the very verge of the utter despair over my limited success with gardening, my garden goes and gives me pounds of some of the best carrots I have ever seen or eaten … and I am sucked back into enthusiastically attempting to grow adequate quantities of foodstuffs in my back yard.

I guess we’ll be expanding by at least a couple of beds, though had to you asked me about that this morning, the answer would have been “Hell no! Smaller!” My what a difference a pile of carrots can make.

I am quite pleased with myself over the carrots. They are supremely awesome carrots. But have I ever mentioned that I really don’t like eating carrots in any form? Well, I don’t. My garden is like my own personal hell. The only things it produces in mass quantities are things I don’t really like eating. Such is life, yes?

Well, tonight we will be eating the last of the first tomatoes! Decided to take a photo before I plucked it off its plant. Oddly shaped, but I know it’s going to be good!

I just got this Tweet –now that I am so trendy and interconnected with the larger universe– and it got me thinking about the garden. I’d already been sitting on the couch not paying attention to what was on the TV thinking about the garden. I have been having deep thoughts about the garden for the last few days.

The winter gardening experience was miserable. I can’t describe it any other way. I had hoped that having a winter garden would spark some appreciation for the colder segment of the year. I love being outside. I feel most alive when I am spending quality time outdoors puttering in “nature” –also known as my back yard. Alas, I can find no reason at all to be outside during winter. There is simply nothing at all to appreciate about winter. It’s just miserable. Even puttering around in “nature” can’t make me want to be outside during the winter.

There will be no future winter gardens. None. I may start some late-winter/early-spring things (like peas), but I am not fussing around outside in Texas mud in near freezing temperatures and high wind for any plant. I will occasionally pay a premium price for one organically and locally grown head of perfect^† for the privilege of not having to be outside and miserable during the winter. Or, I’ll buy the clone-like stuff at the grocery store. Or do without. What I will not do is spend another winter fretting over plants.

There. I said it.

Tomorrow, I may have things to say about the spring and summer garden too. Oh, there’s going to be one, because I have carefully selected seeds from carefully selected plants which were grown in my own yard that I have to plant in order to collect seeds from those plants ad infinitum. The Great Garden Experiment will go on. I’m just not certain about the scale of the thing, and that’s just one of the many decisions about the garden that I am currently contemplating.

And all that talk the other day about not bothering with a plan and just going all carefree about the nitty-gritty details of plants and growing things? Just ignore it. I started working on The Plan 2010 last night.

1. † And by “perfect” I do mean looking like an actual fresh vegetable grown in a natural environment and not a clone-like representation of what we think broccoli should look like – as one would see in most grocery store produce departments. [↩]

Though I got a total amount of zero hours of sleep last night, I didn’t want today to be a waste of a day, so I got busy on things I needed to get busy on … most notably, the garden.

It’s going to be stormy and nasty tonight and tomorrow. Wednesday, I’ll be going to the feed store for a couple of plants, and hopefully, I will be able to get some planting done that day. Then I’ll be off for my dentist appointment the next day, which may end up being a two day stay (depending on what the dentist does to my mom’s mouth that day). This coming weekend, I need to tackle the disasters that are the beds which went unused during winter and add some new beds. Phew. What a lot of work yet to be done!

It was so great being out in the garden again. I’ve missed being in the sunshine and warm breezes so much. Few things make me as happy.

We had a fabulously healthy meal for dinner last night. Boiled shrimp and a huge pile of fresh veggies, some from our garden!

Yes, we finally got to eat the first tomato of the year, the one that has been on that plant all winter, and it was good. Sweet with a bit of acid, and the skin wasn’t tough at all. Just wish it had been larger! I saved what seeds there were, and there weren’t many. As soon as they finish fermenting, I will be getting them going in starter pots. I hope some of them are viable.

Also, the last of the broccoli and radishes were in last night’s dinner, as well as the last of the first crop of lettuce. The first lettuce to come up is already going to seed, and as soon as it does, I am simply going to stick some in the ground again. It’s really good lettuce.

There is so much to be said about eating food you have grown yourself. Always brings a smile to my face when something on our dinner plate is something I had a hand in bringing to the table through my own efforts. I am looking forward to the spring growing season with my usual high levels of optimism. Sure, last year was awful, but THIS YEAR, my garden is going to rock!^†

This week I start making the tough decisions about what gets pulled out of the garden and what gets a chance to stay. I have to get some stuff in the ground this week, or my garden won’t be rocking at all. And tomorrow, I will be making the pilgrimage back to the feed store for a couple of plants. Not too many, as I have all manner of seeds stockpiled, but a few. No idea what. I’ll just have to see what he has. Last year I planned the hell out of everything, and nothing worked as planned. This year I am going much more freeform and just sticking stuff in the ground and enjoying myself.

Well, that’s what I am saying now, because I am too lazy to do all that planning and charting and record keeping. I might find not having a rock-hard plan is more annoying to me than having a plan that goes astray along the way. We’ll just have to see.

1. † That is one of the addiction factors in gardening, you know. You always know your next garden is going to be better than your last one, because it just has to be, right? LOL! [↩]

We need bread, and a nasty wet day is the best time to bake some, so that’s what I am doing. It’s on the second rise now, and I look forward to the delicious scent of bread baking filling the house in about 30 minutes. Then I look forward to it being done so I can dig in and have a slice!

The only other news around the house today is that one of those three lonely tomatoes I have been pampering all winter is finally becoming ripe, and a the other night we ate some of the first lettuce of the year. Hopefully by the end of the week I will be able to serve a salad made with nothing but goods from the garden. I’m looking forward to that too.

I’m sure there are ten thousand things I should be doing today other than the things I am doing, but I’m going to keep messing around with my online network, playing silly flash games, and in general being a lazy slug. Rainy days are no good for me for getting things done.

Though I will be doing some intense yoga as soon as the bread is officially baking. My back needs it.

Frozen veggies anyone? I’m sure there will be tears and hair pulling when this thaws out and all my plants are dead, but for right now, I don’t mind. At least the garden looks pretty and interesting rather than half-dead and depressing!

I covered my garden beds. It’s not really all that cold outside right now, but the wind is picking up, and it’s a bitterly cold wind. I wasn’t sure if I should cover them or not, because no one seems to be able to agree on whether there will be an actual freeze. Most of them can stand a light freeze, but I’d rather not chance it. Now though, I have to worry about it raining too much and the plastic giving way and crushing the poor plants. If it’s not one thing, it’s another!

I’m getting tired of the winter garden again. Nothing in it is prospering in the slightest, and though the broccoli is finally making broccoli, it’s growing soooo slowly. I think in another week or two I will be pulling out everything but the broccoli, carrots, and the new baby lettuces that have come up. I want to start getting ready for spring, and I need to work the dirt a little and add some things to it to refresh it.

Since it’s going to be nasty outside the next few days, which always leaves me feeling bummed out, I think I’ll cheer myself up by starting some seeds for the spring garden. Not that I won’t kill them, because I somehow always manage to kill most of my seedlings, but at least it’ll give me something to dote on and be excited (or grumbling) about until I can really get out into the garden. Who knows, maybe I’ll succeed at getting some plants started and thriving early this year. It could happen!

In fact, rather than spend this evening ripping seams with that dinky seam ripper, I think I’ll look through my seeds and seed catalogs and start planning for spring. And … start pestering the husband about adding a new raised bed or two. I really need more room if I am going to continue to go organic out there, because nature takes it’s share of everything I grow. Only fair, I suppose, but does nature have to want so much? LOL!