In Quest of the Simple Life

Gardening is therapy. Only you get tomatoes. - Unknown

So these last few days I’ve practically lived in the garden. Val, my best friend and housemate, climbed onto the back loft to get a good Internet signal (a rare species these days) for a six hour writing lecture. I’d love to hear that lecture when they have it recorded in one hour sessions – preferably in a format that I can tote around with me – but while she perched high and happy, I worked below in the garden. Occasionally we’d call to each other.

I attached two extension cords together and took my CD player out to the garden, alternating between the Narnia soundtrack (inspiring for my novel that I’d occasionally take a break and sit in the the green garden chair to write a page) and Irish music. Soft melodies enhances nature. Lively jigs speeds digging.

Here is my lettuce, which is coming along very nicely. So far I’ve only seen two leaves that look like a bug mistook for a restaurant, so I suppose it’s time to hunt down a sprayer and get some garlic water.

I needed a trellis, so I had to get a bit creative – okay – a lot creative. So creative, I’m not even sure it’s going to work.

Step one: Go into garage.

Step two: Find all kinds of cool trellis/pole ideas from things that don’t belong to me and would require a phone call and probably quite a bit of convincing to be allowed to subject to rain. After all, they don’t make pitchforks as well anymore and you should never, ever leave out your tools. I have two swords in my room that would make cool trellis holders, but every neighbor around would probably come play sword in the stone and then I’d have weapons at large.

It was time for plan B. I looked high and low, finding old door screens and frames but again, they don’t belong to me. The volleyball net and poles, however, do – remnants from my pain-free childhood – though I always hated volleyball because I’d inevitably end up with a ball smashing into my face. But I can’t reach them so I keep looking, tucking that tidbit away. My idea is to use the bottom of the pole to do a Florida Weave technique on the tomatoes.  Later I get the idea… could I actually USE the entire thing? The net could be the trellis. It would add height and perhaps interest. Or just look really junky. I’ll keep thinking on that.

What I found was something I’d seen in a yard not even an hour before and wished we had one. It was this little cast-iron sign-holder, thing.

An hour later It looked like this. Note the black spray paint job.

Several hours later, it was in the garden, looking like this. It’s hard to see, but there is about a foot wide ribbon of chicken wire running up to both sides. This… is where I’m planning on putting a sugar pumpkin plant, a squash plant and perhaps some peas running up on their own strings. I’m not done with it but the idea it to have a sort of recycled vegetable tee pee. I also plan to make a sign for it to hold. I want to upcycle and use what I can – but try as much as I can to keep things looking quaint and interesting – not reused tacky.

Like I said, I warned you about my kindergarten projects.

Speaking of kindergarten projects, my heirloom seeds came in the mail, causing much rejoicing and spurring another afternoon of work. I needed the washing bin I had a tomato plant in, so I foreclosed its home and then the tomato plant (remember the seedlings from the yucky store bought tomato?) found another home – at the base of the grapevine trellis. My father once told me he treated his tomatoes just like weeds and they grew better than his neighbor’s pampered plants. This is my experimental tomato plant. See it there, hiding among its weed friends?

Anyway, back to the washing tin. So because I was going to have it indoors (and couldn't put holes in the bottom when I tried) I found some rocks to help with drainage. Warrant, it probably works better if you have layers of rocks, but these were all I could find. 

Then I filled it with my ant-less compost (they moved after I moved the bin and left the pile just sitting there for three days) because I didn’t have a lot of potting soil. I only put potting soil on the top. Then I took my heirloom lettuce and spinach leaves and planted.

I also put in a tomato variation called “Cream Sausage” that apparently doesn’t need to be staked – just to see how it did. It also sets all it’s fruit at one time, so there goes my ideas of having a ready supply of cooking tomatoes on hand.

I’m not sure if those seeds are still in it, since my cat thought it was a litter box – it’s amazing. He’s house trained and not a house kitty. But despite our many talks about how he is an outside kitty, he only likes being outside when I’m outside. When I’m inside, he sits at the screen door and cries – and prepares to rush in at the slightest crack in the door. He also likes fresh water out of the toilet and the outside water faucet.

Watering. It’s a chore. You see, I have a hose that reaches to the first grapevine and no farther. So I have two choices. Turn on the water and let it soak part of the yard while I haul a bucket from hose end to garden – or give up on the hose and pretend to be a pioneer. Or an Erish slave. I do that too. (If you’re wondering what an Erish slave is, you’ll have to read “The Secret of Sentarra.” It’s very good. I know. I wrote it.) If you DO know what an Erish slave is – you probably know me and may be giggling right now. Ahem. Moving on.

So what else? I’m experimenting with trellis ideas, creating another batch of compost, wondering if I can get the lawnmower started and keep it running, and exchanging gardening tips with my brother on the phone on a fairly regular basis.

So far I have planted in pots, two black cherry tomato plants, two cream sausage tomato plants and one Black Krim tomato plant that was included in my order as a bonus. I’ve planted an egg carton (not sure it’s big enough but I’ll give it a try) of lavender plants, four of whom have popped up so far despite the ordinary yard dirt, rainbow Swiss chard and a whole slew of bell pepper plants since I haven’t had luck with my other ones. Perhaps it’s just not warm enough yet. I put out the lettuce mixture, Bloomesdale Spinach and Strawberry Spinach in the garden.

The latter is of particular interest to me. Spinach and berries from one plant from England. It’s becoming rare apparently so I wanted to make sure I had luck with mine. I planted it in the lettuce bed with the others and in the pot inside. Then I took that lovely compost that I was spreading in front of the garage to use for the hollyhock and spread some more in there. It’s self-seeding so I wanted to give it a spot where it could reproduce to its heart’s content and good soil.

I planted two pumpkin seeds in a mound with the chicken wire crawling out and up. I went ahead and put in the okra even though it will wait until it’s good and warm before it shows up.

I put in another row of corn, and planted the beans. Some ordinary pinto beans from my pantry.

And Cherokee Black Beans which are also called “Trail of Tear” beans. I got these because of my grandpa whose grandmother was Cherokee with ancestors on that trail where the beans were apparently carried along. So now I’ve mixed history of one side of my family into the land belonging to the other side. Cherokees and French, meet the Germans and Scotch Irish. There. One big happy family marrying in the melting pot.

Most of this work, I did in one day. Along with another upgrading project.

I found this washstand in the garage, tucked next to the old cast iron washing/soap making things.

I wanted to use it for a bookshelf, but I decided I needed a spice cabinet in the kitchen. Also somewhere to hold our silverware since we haven’t won the bug war in the drawers.

So we’ve been using it looking like this. I scrounged up some old paint while searching for paint for the cast iron rod, and though I couldn’t get it entirely shook/stirred up, I put a light, fresh coat on. It has sort of a rustic look now, since you can still see through the paint and some brush marks but it turned out pretty well.

Now, if I can convince the rosemary that it wants to take root and grow and get the parsley seeds in their own container, we’ll be on our way to fresh herbs in the kitchen.

Another interesting tidbit before I close. This was a bit of lettuce we’d used from the store. I put it in water to see if it would root, left it a few days, gave up and stuck it in the garden. Until two days ago it looked like it would just decompose, but here you are. It’s growing new leaves. J I may start planting all my scraps.