It’s early, there is a light mist on the ground because the sun’s not quite up and the garden is beautifully quiet. This is one of my favorite times to come out and look at all my little greenies that are popping up out of the soil. Our goal for this year’s spring garden is to learn……how much garden do we need for sustaining our family, which organic sprays, fertilizer, etc work best, and how do we keep the critters from feasting on our dinner? We are in zone 9, so it took some homework to find out which fruits and vegetables thrive here best, which varieties of fruits and vegetables are preferred, and what to expect during the growth process with fertilization and pest control.
When preparing the garden earlier in February, I tried to do everything right and a few things wrong, just to see……..A couple of beds are done with leftover landscape timbers (a big no-no in the organic world) and two beds are done with leftover brick.
Two baby pools are host to my peppers, and I have 2 gallon bright yellow buckets of a secret recipe (for dirt that is) that I am testing for a friend for the purpose of triple yielding my produce. As far as dirt goes, there is one bed with very expensive organic dirt, there is the secret recipe dirt in the 2 gallon buckets, and the rest have a combination of a premium garden soil and compost that we had delivered by big truck. (4 yards to shovel and distribute with much thanks to my teen boys for their hard work.)
Plants were chosen from premium gardening nurseries as well as local big box stores…. organic heirloom or non-hybrid seeds were ordered and have now been planted. (by the farmer’s almanac, of course, with the exception of the okra) It promises to be an exciting adventure!
There has already been a harvesting in the garden! The starfruit is the first of the fruits to ripen and we took full advantage of all it’s splendor. It tasted good, too! Citrus-y and smooth, not grainy. The kumquat and mint joined in the fun! The vintage citrus fork has been saved for such an occasion as this! This success has spurred us on and led us to believe we can do great things! Funny how one little success can do that!
