Our little Plot at the Garden

I have a thing about firewood. I tell Myles about this all of the time. When we have firewood I am happy, when it gets low I get stressed. If I can't make a fire in our wood stove when I want to, my world is not right. I think it's some ancient instinct that runs in my blood from many many years ago. I love the smell of our firewood, I love how it stacks together just the right way, I love knowing how to make a good fire, having soft wood for kindling, harder wood for heat when I really want the fire to burn hot and long.... Is it because I'm a Sagittarius? A fire sign? I will never really know....but I love firewood.

I feel the same way about the Earth, the soil, the dirt. We have a garden at home. We don't NEED another place to grow things, but why not? When they decided to make an empty lot near our house into a community garden I was one of the first to sign up. I love community. I want to garden with my neighbor, and most of all, I want a place to really dig. A place to relax and breath fresh air. And a place to gently place seeds into the Earth, cover them lightly with soil, and watch them grow. AND if I'm lucky, everything will be ready just in time for Emmylou to start tasting solid food =) Perfect!!

Right now our plot doesn't look like much of anything, but a mess. There are all levels of gardeners at our garden, and I often walk around and look at the other plots. Some are so creative and organized. Some people even use string to map out little paths etc. Other are just 3 rows. Straight, useful and organized rows. I couldn't be so simple.

So far our plot has a little somethin here, a little somethin there. It doesn't help that our plot is also the ONLY shady plot in the whole place (totally my fault because I asked to be moved from the first plot they gave us because I thought it was too shady). I am however embracing the shade. How else could my children enjoy hours at this place if it was ALWAYS in the hot sun? And the shade comes from a really beautiful tree right on the other side of the fence. I am hoping its an apple tree, and then we will have apples to add to harvest. I could only be so lucky.....I think it's probably the tiny little cherry's that you can't even eat, but we shall see.

One thing I'm excited for is our bean tee pee. I've been wanting to grow one for several years now, and I finally get to try it. We are going to grow Scarlet Runner Beans on it, another first. I hope they do well.

So back to the shade conversation, I know I want to grow lots of tomatoes, squash, peppers....all needing lots of sun, so I have to save space for those veggies (it's still too early here to put them in the ground) so in the mean time I'm busy planting random stuff all over the other parts of the plot.

By the way....gardening with two children is pretty much impossible. I can never seem to have them BOTH occupied at once. I have to be very careful of Adelaide because she always wants to dig for worms RIGHT WHERE my big ol shovel is chopping at the soil. We find all kinds of interesting "creatures" in our garden. The other day we found a "rolly poley" bug, which Adelaide had never seen. I was showing her how it rolls up into a little ball. She simply replied "it kind of reminds me of an armadillo". I think she might be a genius. How does she even know what an armadillo is? hmmmm

Rule #1 - make sure you always bring the potty with you.
Murphy's law says 'if you are trying to garden, Adelaide will need to poop'

This is what I am doing for the majority of the times spent at Plot #4

As of today we have planted:

Spinach given to me by a fellow gardener who didn't have room for it in her plot...(I didn't even know you could plant spinach starts?! I always grow it from seed)

Kale (starts we grew at home)
Broccoli (starts from home)

Runner Bean seeds
Thyme seeds
Spinach seeds
Beet seeds
Green Bean (bush) seeds
probably other things that I just can't remember right now. We also have lots of little tomato starts, jalapenos, flowers and basil that isn't ready to go outside quite yet. Our garden at home is where we planted our peas, chard, more spinach, kale, lettuce, onions, chives beets, radishes and probably other things that I also can't remember right now!

I'm sure once the starts are all our at our local store I will go crazy and wish that I had planned my space out better, but this is our first year doing this, and if it's too stressful than it won't be fun, so I am just going to let it be organic.