I need some kind of gardening icon!
I'm at work and away from all of my notes and spreadsheets and whatnot, so this might not get completed until later. I *should* be writing the grant report, but I'm looking at this as a warm-up.
So, gardening! I started getting kinda into growing herbs and stuff back in Little Rock, but I had to leave all of the plants and pots and everything behind when I moved up here. It was actually very sad, but I managed. My first three places in Boston weren't at all conducive even to pots of things (well, I *could* have gardened quite a bit at the second place in Somerville, but I wasn't there long enough and grad school and such as), and I was starting to get itchy with missing it, especially after helping
catvalente and justbeast plant a pretty awesome garden at their last place. At our current apartment, we actually have a backyard and a little patio, so plants have begun sort of appearing. We have a big pot with a tiny pine tree that was a favor from
athalran and inochinoakari's wedding. it has been joined by a pot of rosemary and a pot of chocolate mint. I've also added basil (ok don't judge me, but the seeds came from a box of Triscuits. I don't even know), two kinds of thyme, and two kinds of spinach to the pot with the tree, as the pot is very large, and the tree is very small, and having other things in there means less weeding for me. Lynx gets nervous that these things are taking nutrients away from the tree, but it's really fine. The basil needs to get cut down and the thyme needs a trim, but really, it is a very big pot. MEANWHILE, there was the basement flooding. That saga is ongoing and still very stressful and annoying, but I think our landlord is probably going to be able to get the work done pretty quickly once he's able to get it started, so possibly by the end of next month? Anyway, lynx came up with a plan to help make sure it never has a chance to happen again, which involves building garden boxes that completely surround the window, as dams to stop any water that rises in the backyard. That means that after this weekend, I will suddenly have quite a bit of raised garden bed space to begin planting in. Yay! SUPER big thanks on this go out to
nex0s, who gave us the idea by planning and building the garden we helped Cat and D with, and for answering my email questions about how the boxes worked and what kind of wood we needed to use and so on. There's going to be one box shaped like an L that goes out from the side of the house and then over to the fence, to block in the window, and then two shorter, straight boxes right at the end of the patio, just for funzies. We're going to Home Depot tonight and they should be finished by the weekend, at which point I can take some pictures. In anticipation of this I was doing research on good winter veggies and cold hardy salad greens and things like that, and the second day I was working on this I found out one of my favorite seed sources (Nichols Gardens, they are fabulous) was actually having a sale on seeds specifically for fall and winter planting. So THAT worked out nicely. I ordered a bunch of stuff and when it got here, we still weren't quite ready to build the boxes, so I made a bunch of "improvised containers" by which I mean I chopped the tops off of a bunch of 2L Diet Coke bottles, gouged some drainage holes in the bottoms, and tossed in some potting soil and seeds. These are all coming along nicely at this point. The spinach has produced enough leaves that we're going to cut them and make hamburgers tonight with spinach leaves as a topping.
Last night I sat down with paper and sketched out where everything will get planted. Decisions are hard, guys, that took forever.
Anyway, here is an incomplete list of things that are either getting planted or transplanted this weekend:
More of the 2 kinds of spinach I have going. One is an heirloom variety, and the other is a hybrid.
Potatoes, an heirloom variety called Zolushka. These are started from seed and take a while to sprout, but I'm looking forward to the results!
2 kinds of carrots, 1 is called yellowstone and the other is something I forget (I didn't actually order the second kind, Nichols throws in free seed packets and encourages people to take their excess veggies to soup kitchens and food pantries, which is pretty cool)
Red Russian Kale
Curled Chervil, which I've never tried. It's similar to parsley, they say?
Corn salad, or mache, another thing I've never tried but apparently French people eat this thing all the time, so I'll give it a shot.
2 kinds of cold weather lettuce, Winter Marvel and Continuity.
2 or 3 kinds of mustard greens. Green Wave is supposed to have a little wasabi flavor to it, so I had to order some for lynx to try. I also have Red giant, and there's one other I'm forgetting.
Mesclun mix, pretty standard.
Garlic! I have bulbs for a variety called Silverskin. Mmmmm garlic.
Maybe some other stuff I forgot about.
I have pictures on my Tumblr, when I get home I may toss them over here.
So yes, there is still veggie gardening that can be done in the winter, even in New England. Next spring and summer though, I have BIG PLANS. Including copying this awesome idea on one of the side fences, for even MORE growing space. And since the part of the L that goes against the house is right under the window seat window, that seems like a perfect place to plant some beans and run the vines up wires to the bottom edge of the window.
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