Let there be life!

By July the organic garden was doing fairly well. It wasn't easy getting there, though.

This is one of the larger harvests of the month. Humble beginnings!

The weather gods are against me. Days of 90+ degree heat have been intermittent with deluges. The soil started to erode in the frequent downpours, exposing some plants' roots along the perimeters of the rows. I hadn't amended the soil properly beforehand so what wasn't eroding near the edges began to form puddles near the middle. It was a hot mess.

I knew this would happen, to an extent. Georgia's clay is horrible with water management but in my haste to get the garden started I figured it would be okay for the first season. (My mother had a beautiful flower and shrub garden. Veggies couldn't be that different, right? Wrong.)

As a short term solution, I bought topsoil and added it to the rows. The chunky little bits of wood slowed the erosion and minimized the puddles at the surface. The added soil also covered the exposed roots. Once the weather became a bit more merciful, I added liquid fertilizers and diligently applied insecticidal soaps to fend off critters that tried to take advantage of the fragile plants. Shame on them!

Slowest. Change. Ever.

The quick-fixes worked long enough to let the batch of plants produce some promising fruit. The Bonnie Patio Tomatoes--so named because the plants only grow 3 feet tall and can fit in a patio container--were the first ready to harvest. Our tomatoes are DELICIOUS and they're still giving fruit now at the tail end of August.

The Bonnie Red Bell Pepper and Bonnie Yellow Bell Pepper plants consistently bare large fruit (5+" long and about 6+" in diameter) but they take weeks to change color since they aren't getting as much sunlight as they should.  When they finally change, they are very flavorful and I love their brilliant colors. So delicious and lovely, in fact, that I refuse to cook them. We only eat them fresh so we get the full enjoyment of the nutrients and color.

Next, the Sweet N' Neat Cherry Tomatoes by Park Seed that I started from seeds began to mature. They produce the cutest little cherry tomatoes and I get 10-20 per week. I slice them in half and pop them over salads and omelets.

The herbs were most difficult to grow outdoors, surprisingly, but I'm not sure why. First problem: Georgia heat can be a beast. Second problem: the seeds are by Weeks Seed Company, a small business without a very strong reputation. Third problem: they seeds were stored at this local nursery. Only God knows how old they might've been. So many of the seeds were duds.

Nom nom cherry tomatoes!

I did manage to get some decent chives and parsley out of the bunch. The basil hasn't matured yet (my fourth try) and the cilantro hasn't gotten beyond a few small leaves and scrawny stalks. I know better what to do when the cooler months arrive.

My Sweet Rainbow Blend Peppers and Cayenne Blend Peppers, both grown by seeds from Park Seed, will be the last to mature. I know Alejandro is excited about the homegrown cayenne and I personally can't wait to add the multicolor peppers to some sort of sautee or stir fry. More to come!

Giving organic gardening a try

During my time in the Peace Corps I learned a bit about gardening. It was mainly from my neighbor--whose name escapes me after three years--but she was a senora with a heart of gold. She maintained an immaculate, quaint garden and her husband herded a few cattle and horses. Aside from Jesus, they were probably the best human beings ever created.

There was something about the peace of their household and the contentment on their faces each day as they settled down to a homegrown meal...I'm convinced that there was something to this gardening thing. Health was a clear benefit. They were pushing 90, quick as whips, more fit than 90% of the folks at my LAFitness, and aside from a few smile lines you couldn't tell that they were ancient.

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Years later, with my own little house in the burbs and two acres of land, I've got a chance to try my hand at gardening. At the tail end of March, after several late frost, I realized that I has already lost precious time.

My husband jumped into overdrive. We selected  a plot of land on the side of our house that is about 20x20. It's elevated on three sides, like a giant raised bed, supported by retention walls made of railroad ties. (It was part of a gift from my father-in-law and fiancee at the time because they knew I wanted a garden.) Georgia clay sucks, so I took a shovel and turned over the dirt at least a foot deep throughout the entire area. Then we rented a tiller to loosen the soil even more. Finally, we made three rows about 4 feet wide with 1.5 foot aisles in between.

It's not the perfect spot but it is the most perfect spot that we had available. The plot rests at the bottom of a hill so water sometimes drains down. We drilled holes in the retention wall and lined the area in the back corner with stones so that the water could drain out.

The space gets about 4 hours of direct sun and the rest of the time it's partly shaded. Again, not ideal, but it was the clearest space near the house and we didn't want to cut down and uproot lots of trees.

So...we had our garden. It wasn't until the beginning of April that I put down the first few transplants that I purchased at Home Depot: 3 determinate Bonnie tomato plants, 2 red and 1 yellow bellpepper plants also by Bonnie. They made the space feel more authentic while I waited for my seeds to germinate in the soil. Not knowing how quickly spring would turn into scorching summer, I planted lettuce, spinach, and chives. I also planted red cabbage and collard greens.

Just as the first leaves of lettuce and spinach began to peak above the soil, the weather changed rapidly. Two weeks of intense heat were followed by a flash flood that caught the entire county by surprise. The newly sprouting veggies didn't stand a chance. The one row of lettuce that did make it through the deluge fried in the sun the next day. The transplants and a few heads of cabbage were the only survivors.

I had another batch of seeds germinating indoors so I was able to pull out the goners and replace them with some plants that might stand a chance. I also sowed a few more seeds directly into the ground.

Only time would tell.