thank you NPR

i came home a little late today and decided to check my email before getting down to the business of cleaning up last week's mess after being gone for the weekend. almost as an afterthought i turned on All Things Considered just in time to hear a story about Adrienne Young. it was one of those fortuitous coincidences that made me feel that my life must be heading in some sort of general direction instead of just taking me in circles. Adrienne Young is a musician and strong advocate of sustainable agriculture, community gardening, buying local, growing organic, etc. in short, everything that i would like to be involved in myself. her singer-songwriter style and her musical themes drew me as well. i followed some of the links on her website and found the American Community Gardening Association, FoodRoutes.org, and Peaceful Valley, an organic garden supply company whose catalog i cannot wait to browse through. if i had turned the radio on five minutes later i would have missed the whole thing.

while browsing those sites i felt a tug in my center, a longing for these things to be my life, for growing things to be what i do. lately i have decided to make my daily prayer a prayer for direction, for myself and for my husband. he has many opportunities on the horizon; i, on the other hand, am dreaming of the time i can either afford to go back to school or quit work altogether. i don't know if hearing a story on the radio is the nudge of God telling me that i'll get there someday, but i'd like to think it wasn't for nothing.

Day 34

at work earlier this week i was talking to one of the residents about my garden. a lot of them enjoy hearing about it because it reminds them of their own gardening days. somehow i ended up telling this gentleman, Walt, that i was growing ground cherries. i had never heard of ground cherries before reading about them in my Seed Savers catalog, but as soon as i mentioned them he said, "oh yeah, my mom used to grow those. she made really good preserves out of them." that made me very happy. i told him that if i made any ground cherry preserves in the fall i would bring him a jar.

it brings me great pleasure to have in my garden an heirloom fruit that probably most people don't grow anymore, but that brings back good memories for someone from an earlier generation. that's the beauty, and part of the mission, of seed savers and i'm glad to be carrying on the tradition.

(if you've been around me at all since the winter you have heard me mention (or go on and on) Heritage Farm and the Seed Savers Exchange. if you haven't and are at all interested in my gardening inspiration i suggest you request their catalog by going to the link above. it's a treasure.)

Day 31

we haven't had any rain for weeks and weeks, but i water the garden regularly with the sprinkler. last thursday evening we had a nice rain; steady, but not too hard. we had a busy weekend so i hadn't looked at the garden too closely, but when i went out there on sunday i couldn't believe what a difference it had made. my tomato plants had grown up past the base of the trellis, my pepper plants had tiny peppers on them, my herbs and newly planted carrots had shot up--it was amazing. rain is such a miracle. sprinklers and watering have their place, but there's nothing like a good rain to soak the whole ground to make things grow.

Day 22

a red letter day for my garden: my trellis is up! yesterday tim cut the pipes and pounded them in and today, my day off, i fastened on the nylon trellis netting. it looks great. my garden finally looks like it's coming together. most of the plants aren't tall enough to reach the netting yet, but they will grow.

(i will post pictures eventually. i've been taking them weekly, but they just take so long to upload on dial-up. you have no idea. i haven't the patience.)

Day 15

Yesterday I decided that one of my mistakes starting out was not thoroughly soaking my soil after preparing it in the beds. It dries out quickly because it started out dry and the watering doesn't penetrate very deeply. Note for next year: soak the garden BEFORE planting seeds. I tried to remedy it by holding the hose really close and soaking it block by block, trying not to disturb the soil very much. It's better, but some areas are still dry.

friday i went out and planted some more seeds. i lost some tomato plants and was afraid i wouldn't have any of two varieties: "cream sausage" (yellow) and "wisconsin-55" (red). i planted two of the former and one of the latter. i also pulled up three of my stressed eggplants and started them over from seed. i'll leave the other three to see if they produce anything. oh, and i also put out three more tomatillos to start from seed since my previous starts all died. i don't know if there is time enough in the growing season for the new tomato plants or the eggplant to produce fruit before frost, but it's all an experiment so i don't mind trying.

i think that's one of the reasons i like gardening. i have some control over how it turns out, but for the most part it's just put the seeds in the ground and see what happens. if it doesn't work, i'll try something different next year. and i'll start earlier.

yesterday i went searching for some of my missing plants. i had one square of "charantais" melon that hadn't come up yet, and one cucumber plant, so i went digging (gently, of course) to see if they were on their way or not at all. i think the charantais is still coming, but i planted another couple cucumber seeds because i couldn't find them anywhere. i also planted some more basil, and a square of marigolds that the cats dug up. darn cats.

i have a toad living by my house. he likes it where the faucet drips and makes the pan beneath overflow. i thought he just hung out under the bush there, but i caught him today crawling out from a hole beneath the house. i wish he lived down by my garden. they eat the bad insects. i like to have him around.

Sunday, May 27

Angela and Jeremy came out Memorial Day weekend to visit and help me get my garden plot set up. We spent the day securing 2x6 boards (thanks Jeremy), smoothing compost and stringing hemp for square foot markers. After a hard day's work Tim fired up the grill and we celebrated with hot dogs, amazing hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon, fresh pineapple, and other tasty delights. It was a lovely time. Angela took pictures. Here they are: