#i can do the tomatoes and squash and maybe cucumbers at least

[six-of-ravens]

perhaps i will do some rage gardening tonight...

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #77

I have no idea what I'm going to write to you about today. After yesterday's letter, my brain feels pretty empty.

I do have a major development, though! J and Br and I are all in a partnership now, with M's blessing and joy, of course! J has been crushing on Br for a while now, and Br has been crushing on the both of us, and at this point, we all know each other well and understand each other as kindhearted individuals who value integrity. So we've decided to give it a try!

Although this represents a huge change in the relationship dynamics between us, and change is often scary and adjustments will need to be made, I'm very excited about this development! We are all passionate about healing, self-improvement, open communication, and caring for those who are good to us, so I think the dynamic has the potential to spur amazing growth in all of us!

…And, it's pretty freaking wonderful to be able to get to look over at the couch and see J and Br cuddling happily, not gonna lie!! Ahahaha!!! 😍

One of the best things about being polyamorous is that when there are more eyes on a relationship (as long as those eyes are earnest and conscientious and committed to the greater good!), the relationship usually becomes much more stable as a result. That's because if there's any kind of trouble, then there are more brains available to work towards solving whatever the problem is. Any conflict is never supposed to be people pitted against each other - rather, it's supposed to be the people versus the problem at hand. Anything is resolvable as long as there is trust, communication, and integrity of word and deed.

So, as I'm writing this, we have M playing the next segment of your story, me on the floor with my laptop on the ottoman, typing away, and Br and J on the couch. At present, the dynamic feels seamless and natural; as though Br has always belonged here. 🥰

We are at Costa Del Sol. I've been trying to pay attention to the kinds of foods that are available in your world, for some reason. I see the stalls around, and I'm noting lemons, apples, tomatoes, corn, bell peppers, nasturtium, onions, watermelons, bananas, cucumbers, basil, potatoes, at least three different kinds of pumpkin or squash, avocados, and I think persimmons and zucchini! I also saw cows and chickens in previous areas, which must mean that you have eggs, milk, beef, and poultry. And there were baked goods, too, so there must be wheat! And I saw a picture of a pineapple, and! Other media has shown things like garlic and grapes!

I suppose it's of immense comfort to me to know that your world and mine aren't so different. We don't have Banora White Apples here, or Gysahl Greens. But the fact that we have at least some of the same things makes me very happy, for reasons I don't know how to articulate.

…After spending a moment thinking about it, maybe it's just the fact that maybe we both might like pineapple. Maybe it's the fact that canonically, we both like noodles. The fact that we both like pumpkin. That we both probably know what onions and garlic taste like. The fact that you can probably make any of the recipes I've given to you, once you build yourself a peaceful life. All of the little things that show that you and I really aren't all that different.

Hey, Sephiroth. Really, you and I aren't all that different. So if I get to have a peaceful life full of love and safety, you deserve the same thing. Work on it, okay? You gotta make it to the end of this, because lots of people will never be the same if you don't. You can't drown in the swamp, got it?

You're loved. You're needed. You belong. Please use that knowledge to gather sufficient courage to remain soft and to make good choices in this world, and keep yourself safe and well cared for in the process.

I'll write again soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[floydsmuse]

Meggy, I'm trying really hard with the Calvin thoughts, I really am, but the Miles Miller thoughts/thots really started talkin and it just couldn't be helped (lol).

Benny absolutely loves to help with the chores around the ranch and he's so friggin cute while doing it (lol). Maybe it's a warm spring day and the grass is nice and green, the flowers are in bloom and everything is just bursting to life. Maybe you're pregnant with Jesse and your bump is getting in the way a little bit. You're hanging all the sheets, pillowcases and shirts out on the clothesline to dry and you drop one. You squat down to pick it up but Benny comes waddle-running over and sternly tells you, "No mommy, no! Daddy say no bend over! I gon help you!" (lol).

Miles loves bringing Benny to go and collect the eggs because he knows it'll keep the broody rooster and the hens in line and from pecking his boots. Benny will be tossing the feed to the chickens while Miles is checking to make sure the eggs aren't fertilized before bringing them back to the house.

Miles and Otis both teach Benny how to milk the cows too. You and Miles adopted four females who mated with a bull and it was one of the best decisions you could have made since it cut back on the grocery bills. The other good thing too was that Miles and Otis didn't have to milk them as often since the calves are still little and can nurse in the early hours of the morning (Rhett and Royal also do that with Abigail, one of the dairy cows Cecelia took in) and you guys get all the milk, cheese and yogurt you could want (especially since Miles is a fiend for all three, lol). You know too that it's time for the cows to be milked when Benny comes back carrying a metal bucket and clanking it with your wooden spoon (lol).

The orchards are by far yours and Miles's favorite places on the ranch. The grape orchards always smell so good and there's rows and rows of apple, blueberry, apricot and huckleberry bushes. Miles loves being out in the field but seriously hates cutting the grapevines back if they're really overgrown and has to keep poor Benny from eating half the crop because they're just that good (lol).

On the property, you're especially grateful for the swimming hole. Montana winters are super cold but oof, those mountain summers are HOT. Half the time you and your family will just dive in without a second thought on especially hot days. Benny loves looking for the duck nests and watching the mallard and his mate leading their little duckies down to the water and anytime you guys have stale or moldy bread that needs to go, Benny will gladly take it down to the swimming hole to feed to them.

He also loves to help with the vegetable garden too. Benny loves to yank up the carrots, parsnips, radishes, turnips, beets, ginger, garlic, potatoes and onions and Miles doesn't mind in the least when dirt sprays everywhere. He loves to pick the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans and big fat squash that like to creep through the dirt. In Fall, you guys get big, fat orange pumpkins that soon become jack-o-lanterns, soups, stews and pumpkin pies.

Speaking of which, Benny loves to help in the kitchen too, especially when you make the German chocolate cake that Miles's grandma, Essie, used to make and it's so tasty especially with the farm fresh eggs, milk and cream that you guys have (lol). Beef, pork and chicken are especially easy to get and Miles even trained the pigs how to find mushrooms which is an added plus for the kitchen. You always have fresh bread being baked no matter what time of the year it is and you always laugh when Benny pulls up a chair and sits in front of the oven to watch it rise.

Meggy I promise you I will try and get some Calvin thoughts/thots together soon, I'm tryin and it's a BITCH!!!! (lol).

Mary my darling! don’t worry about it :) i will gladly accept any thots/thoughts that come up! i love our precious boy Miles & i can’t wait to read what you’ve sent in!

~ aww little Benny helping out with the chores :,) i just know he feels like such a big boy & is all giddy to help out mommy in any way he can🥹 Benny running over to you to pick up what you dropped is just so sweet! Miles wouldn’t want you to lift a single finger while you’re carrying baby boy & would do everything he can to make your pregnancy as easy & effortless as possible for you!

~ i could so picture Miles bringing Benny to collect the eggs & milk the cows too! that couldn’t be more perfect :,) idk why but for some reason i could see Miles having a ton of knowledge on all the animals on the farm & he’ll share little facts with Benny & you at any given chance! he’s so fascinated by all creatures & animals that roam the earth. he almost loves them more than he does humans, but with an exception of you & Benny of course ! i could also see animals being super attached to Miles, like even deers or squirrels will come up to him & he’ll happily feed them or give them a little pet. He’s like the wildlife whisperer or something. a real life prince charming🥰

~ ahh not Benny eating up all the grapes🤣 i can’t say i blame him tho. they are super yummy! especially fresh ones straight from the vine! a swimming hole? that sounds intriguing! i need one of those when it gets hot😅 aww Benny pulling out veggies from the vegetable garden is so cute! i like the idea of you & Miles gathering up all the veggies & squash to make some delicious soups/meals! i love Benny being a big help & getting so involved with all these activities around the farm :,)

~ Benny helping in the kitchen too?! Mary! it’s just cuteness overload at this point🥹 i could picture him being all giggly & excited when you ask him to help you bake/cook! when you or Miles offer to help Benny, he playfully shuns you away & is all like “i got it mama, dada. no need any help.” which proceeds to make you & Miles laugh. you let him do his thing, but are always there to guide him or help if he needs it! :)

Mary! these thoughts were so sweet & just what i needed tonight🥰 as always, thank you for sharing them with me! i look forward to see what you send in next💗

[ananxiousgardener]

Garden Log #4/14/2024 - Morning

I bought 80 bags of 1cuft garden soil foolishly expecting that to be enough for my garden (even adding the remaining 13 bags from last year), but I'm down to 37 bags and I've only filled one row out of the 4-6 rows I'd hoped to do.

I'm going to make some shorter plots for planting some squash, zucchini, and cucumbers, just because I really want to keep those as separate as possible to avoid the issues I had last year with powdery mildew. I also need to make space for beans, though I'll likely just end up inter-planting them with all the other plots.

And corn! I keep forgetting to make a plan for the stinky corn. It grew well last year, but I didn't harvest any of it at the right time and it was way too chewy to enjoy. I might be able to interplant corn with some of the vining plants, though I'll need to check the compatibility between them first.

I also need to decide where I'm going to be transplanting my catnip plants as I have five that should be transplanted, and they're supposed to work well as companions for most veggies.

I've also got to clean out the greenhouse so I can lay the weed guard down so it doesn't get overgrown like last year. I wish mulch and gravel weren't so expensive because it would be nice not to have to worry about the weed guard getting blown away like I have in my garden. Then again, if it's blown away in the green house then that's likely my least concern.

Yesterday I managed to plant... maybe eighteen garlic cloves, at least twelve sweet onions, two dahlia roots, seven potatoes, and two yellow cherry tomato seedlings that I found growing in my greenhouse. Oh, and two sunflower seedlings that I also found! All went directly into the garden. I'm considering planting my broccoli and cabbage seedlings in as well, but I'm concerned about slugs eating them or raccoons and opossums digging them up.

I should probably put up the electric fence before it actually does become an issue. They're too nervous about the weed guard to go digging right now, but it's only a matter of time.

I hope I can make some garden logs every now and then as it really helps to keep my interest up and it's fun to remember the progress I've made, as well as a reminder to when I planted things. It is getting a little late in the morning, though, and I need to take some seedlings out to the greenhouse and uncover some plants in the garden before the sun hits them.

[whiskeynovember]

It's hurricane time. dare I say... i love the weather so far. obviously, that will change depending on the damage, but something about the dark, moody skies, the rain, the humidity reminds me of *home.*

besides the pests, everything is doing amazing. the grasshoppers, for whatever reason, are loving the purple and sweet basil. I've given up on the possibility that any of my eggplants will bare fruit. just keeping them alive and free of those dang flea beetles is enough.

my tomatoes look like they will do another spurt of fruit. so many flowers. pruning them is getting harder and harder.

peppers are good, lots of flowers, but still no peppers. I lost one cherry pepper, but the other seem ok.

a honeydew is growing fruit and I went and tried to pollinate another along with the watermelon.

speaking of which, not sure what's going on with the leaves. I'm pruning as it gets bad, but I'm not sure what the cause is. the worms are getting to them, as with everything. don't know where they're coming from or how they're getting to literally all of my plants, including the ones on the patio completely away from everything...

but here we are. poor basil. i check them every day and nothing prepared me for that huge sucker I'd find today or the complete damage it caused seemingly overnight.

The rest of the herbs seem fine, though I did find a few small ones on the new sage plants. also a few on the basil.

they're everywhere. i spray. i shake. i inspect. i don't know if I can do more.

I need to think about fall season and what I want to try to save in pots, pull up, and bury during winter.

i want to keep at least one of each pepper in a pot and maybe one of each eggplant. the squash, melon, beans, cucumbers (besides the cucamelon) and most of the tomatoes will go. I'm going to try to keep the beefsteak and maybe one of each Roma and better boy.

for fall and winter, I'm going to keep it simple and try my hand at the bok choi, Chinese cabbage, and more carrots.

[thessalian]

Thess vs the Grocery List

A couple of bits of commentary got me to thinking about how I handle food shopping and what I think about things along the lines of inflation.

Last first: inflation. Yes, I know things cost more over time. You know what else should cost more over time as a result? THE TIME AND EFFORT OF THE PEOPLE WHO PRODUCE IT. The problem is that it doesn’t. Wages have not gone up in line with inflation for quite some time. Most of the people I know haven’t had a pay rise even in line with inflation for decades. So before you start bitching about, “Of course things cost more - it’s inflation”, ask yourself why inflation doesn’t apply to human labour. When it very clearly should. If inflation on items keeps increasing without the wages of those who allow for the production and distribution of those things rising to compensate, only the very rich will be able to afford anything at all, and those of us who do the majority of the actual work will be left to starve and so will the rich people because there won’t be an us to exploit anymore.

That or we’re going to bring back the guillotine. But I doubt that because too many people living just above the poverty line think this is entirely fair despite the fact that they’re a bad month away from being below the poverty line instead of the temporarily embarrassed millionaires they believe themselves to be, and they’ll never rise up until they finally figure out that they’re getting screwed right along with the rest of us.

Anyway.

Insofar as grocery shopping goes. I did some good shopping - I mean, the bill came to a lot, but I was shopping for the month. There were a lot of things to consider. Like, 30 days before next payday, I need food for dinner for 30 days, minimum. More to the point, I need some of that food to be minimal-effort in case of bad fibro flare days ... and I don’t know how much, because I have no way of establishing how many pain days I’m going to have in a month. I also need to consider more than just one meal per day, because eating just that isn’t healthy, and enough of it has to be portable to get me through 16 or so days per month at work. And on top of all that, it needs to take my dietary restrictions into account - gluten intolerance and lactose intolerance. And being stuff I actually like and would want to eat? That does actually take a lot of fanangling. (Though at least the lactose intolerance is get-around-able because I can tolerate it in small doses and for larger doses there’s Lactaid.)

So here’s my shopping list, because I’m honestly rather proud of it:

Meat for many many days (nine chicken legs; eight pork chops, two rump steaks, 500g beef mince, two salmon fillets, two sea bass fillets), most of which went into the freezer in individual packets. Also salami.

Frozen veggies (two bags of broccoli, one of broccoli and cauliflower, also some hash browns and potato waffles)

Fresh fruit and veggies (clementines, grapes, carrots, courgette/zucchini, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumber)

Dried fruit (apricots, banana chips, raisins, sultana/strawberry medley, and basically healthy alternatives to gummy sweets made from actual fruit)

Crisps (multipacks, variety packs)

Basic dried goods (two bags rice, three bags gluten-free pasta, four tins tuna, two jars instant coffee, sugar, gluten-free breakfast cereal)

Dairy-ish (butter and gluten-free yoghurt)

Some basic treats (gluten-free cookies, two bags of gummy sweets, six-pack of cola, two bottles of squash - like Kool-Aid but in liquid form, and speciality flavoured rice)

Which, for $140 or so, isn’t that bad, given the amount of speciality food. I mean, yeah, sticker shock, but beyond maybe topping up the fresh fruit and veg, I won’t have to buy anything else for the rest of the month. Which is good because shopping is hard for me. Hell, even putting all that away hurt.

I’ve made as many allowances as I can for bad pain days. The tuna’s good for my easy-cook tuna broccoli pasta, the fish will be two meals apiece with one being leftovers for the following day or frozen on being cooked, the mince is for a batch of bolognaise sauce which will be at least four meals with only one lot of cooking effort (one on the day, three servings frozen for consecutive days, and since I’m using onion, mushroom and courgette as filler I could maybe even stretch it to four), and most of the rest of it doesn’t take that much effort depending on what I do with it.

Suttice to say, eating reasonably while still getting some enjoyment out of it takes some serious work. I’m willing to put the effort in, though. I remember the times when I didn’t, or couldn’t. Nothing is more depressing than having to scrape through on nothing but the bare minimum with no end in sight. Hell, some of my best budget meal tricks require cup-o-soup mix, and those all have wheat flour in them as thickener, so I’d have an even harder time now. But it’s miserable, eating nothing but the bare minimum, scraping together whatever budget meal you can afford, rationing to have a vaguely steady trickle of food until the next payday or your benefits come in or both, and knowing that it’ll never be enough to really feel well-fed.

And the worst of it is the hit to morale. It’s the modern day equivalent of just enough gruel to survive without having enough energy to do much else beyond what you need to do to earn just enough gruel to survive in a vicious demoralisation cycle. My mental health is bad enough as it is without adding that, so it’s fairly necessary for me to produce decent meals on the quasi-regular, and the occasional treat. I have to remember that I’m worth it; a lot of the world would love to convince me and everyone else otherwise.

It should not take this much planning to eat decently; people deserve decent, healthy, tasty food without this much juggling. But it does. So I’m going to make the damn effort for as long as UK food stocks hold out.

[bittysvalentines]

growing on me

From: @poindextears

To: @starryeyed-cat

Rating: T, for allusions to sex but nothing on-page

Hi lovely person! There's a part 2 to this fic, because apparently I'm out of control. When I see it go up on ao3 on the 14th, I will send you the link via tumblr. Until then, here's part 1! I hope you enjoy this fluff :)

May

The best thing about the new apartment is that there’s a garden behind the building.

It’s not the main reason Will chose to move here, exactly. But it did have some bearing on his decision. His old apartment was tiny, on the fourth floor of the complex, tucked into a dark corner with poor lighting and roaches and a leaky ceiling. He couldn’t so much as keep a houseplant alive in that place, much less any good spirits.

But for two years after college, it was all he could afford at his entry-level salary. His raise last fall put him in a better spot, and it led to this— renting out the bottom floor of a small house on the southwest side of Boston. The landlord says there’s another tenant moving in upstairs in about two weeks, but for now, Will enjoys the peace and quiet, the building all to himself. It has actual windows and floor space and sanitation that would pass inspection.

And… a garden out back.

It’s not the most lush thing in the world. If he could even call the area out back a backyard, it’s right in the center, amidst dingy grass full of brown patches that could use a proper irrigation system. The thing itself is a square patch of dirt, not the best soil but something he can definitely work with. It’s no more than ten feet across.

It’s not much. But if working in Boston means he can’t have the forest or the wide open sea or the yard his parents worked so hard to upkeep around the house he grew up in… then he can have a little garden.

So he resolves to bring the thing back to life.

*

It’ll be a vegetable garden, he decides, just like Ma always plants by the shed in the summer, because if there’s one thing that’s nice, it’s not having to buy your produce. He can envision it now— tomatoes on the left, cucumbers and summer squash under them, snap peas in the center, maybe autumn squash or pumpkins on the right side in a few weeks.

It’s the perfect summer project. When you spend all day working in front of a computer, a little dose of the outdoors in the afternoons is a nice balance.

He plants on a Saturday afternoon, donning his old work boots and a backwards snapback and stationing himself out back with Shep, who ambles around enjoying the mellow sun and napping on the patchy grass.

Shep is an Australian shepherd, or at least that’s what Will is pretty sure he is. Will adopted him by accident, after finding him on the street. His old apartment was no place for a dog, but he couldn’t stand to turn him into the shelter. It was another factor in his wanting to move out as soon as possible.

He’s shaking cucumber seeds into his dirt-stained hand when Shep lets out a little bark, not so much an alert noise but a happy one. Will grins as he hears him trot by, towards the house, and doesn’t look up from his seeds. “What’s up, Shep?”

But then, a voice. “���Sup, doggy.”

Will whips his head over his shoulder, fearing for a moment that someone is trespassing on the property, but almost immediately he remembers the sounds of people going up and down the stairs this morning. The second tenant has moved in.

And here he is. After giving Shep a pat on the head, he makes his way across the yard and stops a few feet away.

“Oh, chill,” he says, laying eyes on Will for the first time. “Is this garden spoken for?”

Oh, no.

He’s beautiful.

He’s tall, probably about Will’s size, and looks his age, too. He has light-brown skin that makes his lavender t-shirt look bright, and he wears a floral snapback atop an undercut that ends in floppy, dark curls. He has a jawline that could cut glass, and both of his arms are covered in sleeves of tattoos, mostly of what look like flowers.

He’s… holy shit. Will is not mentally equipped to process this right now. He’s not sure he’s ever seen a prettier man in his life.

It only occurs to Will after what must be a slightly awkward few seconds that the guy has asked him a question, though. Is this garden spoken for? He tries to clear his throat, like he hasn’t just been staring blankly for the past several moments. “Some of it is.”

“Are you…” The guy pauses to scratch behind his neck, which is really not fucking fair, because it means he has to flex his tattooed arm. And he’s, um. He’s jacked. “... planning on using the some of it that isn’t?”

Will really hopes his face isn’t red. He weighs the implications of what the guy is asking, surveys the part of the garden he’s reserved for squash. If this guy wants to use the garden… so much for squash.

“I mean,” he says finally, “not if you want to use it.”

“Oh, chill,” says the guy, strolling the rest of the way up to him. He sweeps his eyes over Will’s patches of upturned soil and empty seed packets. “What are you planting?”

Will exhales. “Vegetables, mostly.”

The guy calculates for a second, then walks around the empty side of the plot. “Are you cool if I do flowers on the other side?” He spreads his hands out over the space like he can already imagine it. “Wildflowers, a trellis or two, maybe a rosebush.”

Truthfully, Will is not ‘cool’ with this. He doesn’t want to share the garden. He especially doesn’t want to share the garden with a beautiful hipster man who wears floral snapbacks and has sleeve tattoos. He wants to plant squash. He was not informed that his new neighbor was, apparently, also a gardening person, not to mention the most beautiful man in Boston.

As much as he wants to say no, he’s not cool with it, he also knows that there’s this thing called common human decency, and that they’re both tenants on the same house, and that, unfortunately, this garden technically belongs to both of them.

“That’s fine.”

The guy grins. His smile, infuriatingly, is just as gorgeous as the rest of him. His eyes are light— green or hazel, maybe. “Chill.”

Will is pretty sure he’s said chill three times in the past five minutes, which is way too many times.

The guy kneels at the edge of the dirt. Shep, meanwhile, lies down next to the spot he’s chosen, among Will’s empty seed packets. Will pauses for a second, and he wonders if the guy will leave without entertaining further conversation. When he’s still looking at the garden after a moment, Will’s curiosity (and gay frustration) gets the better of him. “Are you the other renter?”

“Oh— yeah, sorry; yeah, I am,” he says, then adds, “I’m Derek. I just got here this morning.”

“Yeah, I heard you moving your boxes,” Will replies. “I’m Will. I live downstairs.”

Derek reaches to pat Shep on the head. “Is this your dog?”

“Yeah, that’s Shep.” Will pauses. Shep closes his eyes as Derek scratches his ears, like it’s an incredibly zen experience. Will adds, as if it were not obvious, “He’s friendly.”

“Hey, Shep.” Derek smiles. He has nice hands. “You’re a fluffy guy.”

Quiet falls in the backyard for a moment. Will mourns the loss of his prospective future squash. Derek smiles vaguely at the stolen patch of dry dirt.

“Well,” he mumbles. “I should probably get unpacking, but hey, it was nice to meet you.” He stands up, and when he smiles at Will, Will feels his stomach do an entire acrobatic routine. Fuck, he’s beautiful. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, uh—” Will clears his throat again. He really really really hopes he’s not blushing. “You, too. Nice to meet you.”

Little does he know that this is only the start.

*

June

Derek plants in, like, four stages.

Will doesn’t understand his process, but he keeps seeing him outside, walking back and forth between the staircase that leads down from his apartment to the garden. He plants from seed, like Will does, except for this one time he carries a mini rosebush across the yard and puts it in the corner next to Will’s tomatoes. He puts a little wire trellis in the center, and his saplings start popping up about a week after Will’s do.

Will successfully avoids talking to him for a little while, aside from the occasional hello when leaving for work in the morning or when their watering times overlap. This is good, because avoiding talking to Derek means avoiding doing something stupid and embarrassing himself.

Then, one warm afternoon in early June, he lets Shep out and sees him go straight up to Derek, who’s watering his rosebush.

Will sighs from his open window. He could use to water anyways.

“Hey, Will.” Derek waves when he approaches, and Shep, thankfully, turns back from the enemy’s side to bound up to Will. “‘Sup?”

“Not much.” Derek is wearing a sun hat and Birkenstocks, and his curls blow in the gentle breeze. He’s ethereal, like a male Persephone. “Just came down to water.”

Will cringes at himself. Of course he’s here to water. He’s holding a watering can.

“Same.” Derek grins, ignoring Will’s stupidity. Will kind of wants to die, but he starts on his cucumber and tomato mounds anyway.

Just be calm. Be cool. He’s just a hot neighbor.

“So, new neighbor,” Derek says, all bravado. “I feel incomplete. I’ve shared a garden with you for two weeks and I don’t know anything about you.”

Will shrugs. “You know my name.”

Derek snorts. “Okay, Mr. Technical. Where are you from?”

“Maine.”

“Like, beach Maine or middle of nowhere Maine?”

“Northern coast Maine.” Will pauses, and almost feels a pang. He hasn’t been home since Christmas, and he misses it. “Near Bar Harbor.”

“Oh.” Derek pauses, then kind of snorts again. “It’s bold of you to assume I know where that is.”

“Well, where are you from?”

“New York,” Derek says, which, really, Will should have been able to guess. “City, not state. I just moved up here.”

“Why did you move to Boston?”

“Work.” Derek pauses, then smiles at his rosebush. “I’m a magazine editor, but I just got promoted, so I relocated to the main office up here.”

“What kind of magazine?” Will asks, for no other reason but curiosity.

“Northeast Lawn and Garden.”

Oh my God. Will might be actually blushing now. “Wait, seriously?”

Derek grins. The brim of his hat casts a shadow over his face. “You’ve heard of it?”

“Of course I’ve heard of it,” he replies. “My ma has been subscribed to that magazine since, like, 1995.” And so have I, since I moved out, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it.

Derek laughs into the blue sky, and it’s a sweet sound. “Hey, that’s chill. I’m glad she enjoys it.”

There’s a brief quiet between them, and Will could choose this moment to leave. His watering is technically done— the garden is so small that it’s low-maintenance— but there’s something about Derek that keeps him, something enticing that wills him not to go just yet.

Besides, it’s not like he has anything better to do.

So when Derek asks, “So what do you do?”, he keeps the conversation going.

*

July

The drive from home in Maine to Boston is long.

Four and a half hours, actually, and although he gets up bright and early at his parents’ house to come home this morning, it doesn’t go by any more quickly than it has in the past. He’s been visiting for the Fourth of July, and even though his brother and a few of his cousins can be prejudiced assholes, he loves his parents, and it feels nice to be home, to be someplace not quite so lonely.

When he and Shep get back to the apartment, it’s high noon, and Derek is outside in the garden.

Will discovers this because he goes to water his plants. They’re getting bigger every day, flourishing in the summer heat, but they’re also super thirsty all the time. Derek is in the same boat— he’s put in wildflowers and a hydrangea and his rosebush and his climbing things. The garden is a tangled mess, and it’s full of weeds.

Except the thing is… Derek is outside today, and… he has no business looking as good as he does.

His shirt, for starters, is a tank top, which leaves little to the imagination when it comes to his arms with all their muscle and ink. He’s also in running shorts, and his weird sun hat, and his skin shines in the sun, and he’s… he’s a lot.

Will has talked to his neighbor, has gotten to know him a little when they’re both out here gardening at the same time. He has managed not to let his annoyance about sharing the garden be his guiding principle with regard to their interpersonal relationship. But still… Jesus fucking Christ. Derek is too much for him to handle.

He pulls his window open, and Derek seems to hear the sound, because he looks up from his flowers and waves.

“Will!” He smiles. “Hey, welcome home, dude! How was Maine?”

“It was fine.” Will pauses, tries to steady himself and maybe not just gape at the fact that he looks so fucking hot oh my God stop being such a gay disaster please focus. “How was your week?”

“Super chill.” Derek stands and steps back from the garden. “Hey, you should come down here. You have a ton of flowers on your tomato plant.”

Shep paws at the door that leads to the backyard, as if to accentuate Derek’s invitation.

You know what? Fine. He needs to water anyway.

*

That’s it. Will is going to kill his neighbor.

Derek may be beautiful, but sharing this garden is not working out. Will’s beloved snap pea plants, having climbed the trellis, are starting to choke out before they bear actual snap peas. And the reason is that Derek’s sweet pea flowers are wrapping around them, turning them brown, tearing the life out of them.

“Derek!”

Derek pokes his curly head out the window of his apartment. “Are you seriously yelling at me from the backyard?”

Will whirls around on his heel. “Your sweet peas are choking out my snap peas!”

Derek snorts. “You’re the one whose plants hijacked my trellis, bro.”

“But they’re—” Will sifts through the plants gingerly, tries to distinguish between the flowered plant and the vegetable one. “They’re dying!”

“Uh, ch’yeah, because you’re encroaching on their territory.”

“The snap peas are dying, not the sweet peas.” Will lets out an anguished sigh. “And the plants were so big—”

Derek, in his window, leans his cheek into his hand. He looks like a noblewoman in a play, in her castle while her suitor confesses his love from the streets below. “Looks like this garden just ain’t big enough for the two of us, Poindexter.”

Will groans again. “You’re an asshole,” he says. While Derek laughs at him from above, he points at him menacingly. “And if my peas die, I’m blaming you for it.”

“I’ll happily take the blame,” Derek replies. “But they’re not gonna die.”

“Yeah.” Will bristles. “We’ll see.”

*

August

The peas don’t die.

Nothing does, actually. The flowers and the vegetables grow into each other, sure, but it’s more like reluctant cohabitation than beautiful cooperation. He and Derek work around each other well into the produce season, and Will vows never to agree to share the garden again. It’s a terrible idea. Derek’s flowers are everywhere, and there could’ve been so much more room for vegetables had he claimed the whole thing before he showed up.

The upside is getting to talk to him. He guesses.

Sunset is getting earlier, but tonight, Will heads out to gather tomatoes at golden hour. Derek is sitting in the grass next to his flowers, in his floral snapback, not really working in the garden but not leaving either. If anything, he’s soaking up the sun.

“Your tomatoes are huge,” Derek says, in lieu of a greeting. “They’re shading my rose.”

Will rolls his eyes and pulls a huge beefsteak off the vine. “The sun is on that side of the yard for half the day.”

“Oh, I’m impressed, not annoyed,” he replies. He looks down at something in his hands— he’s weaving a chain of his wildflowers together, by the stems.

He seems to notice Will studying what he’s doing, so he adds, “I’m making a flower crown.”

Will almost rolls his eyes again, but restrains himself. It’s exactly the kind of hippie shit he’d expect from Derek.

“Do you want one?” Derek continues. “You’d look cute.”

Will fully blushes. He yanks a tomato, hard, and nearly knocks over his entire plant and stake in the process. “No.”

“Okay.” Derek smiles, without a care in the world, and pulls his hat off to put the flower chain on his head. It looks, of course, perfect on him. “Then you can wear my hat.”

Will pauses with his hand in his cherry tomato stalk. “Beg your pardon?”

“Here.” Derek tosses him his snapback, and it lands in the grass by his feet. Then he adds, like it means nothing, “Bet it’d look good on you.”

Will has ascertained that Derek is bi— half because he has a shirt he said he got at NYC Pride that says pretty fly for a bi guy in purple, blue, and pink, and half because he flirts with Will and then pretends like he’s not flirting. Will hasn’t disclosed his sexuality yet, for this reason. For all he knows, Derek could be like this with everyone else in his life.

He’s not in the business of getting hurt by pretty boys, especially not when they share a garden and a building with him.

“C’mon,” Derek urges, still smiling. “Just try it.”

Will bends over and picks up the hat. It’s white, with florals in pink and yellow and green. When he puts it on backwards, Derek falls into the grass and whistles.

“Wow,” he sighs at the afternoon sky. “I was right.”

“I’m keeping this,” Will says, matter-of-factly.

Derek beams. His flower crown falls crooked, daisies and cosmos and nasturtium among his curls. Will wants to kiss him, but can’t and doesn’t. “Be my guest.”

*

September

It’s September, and the grass is green.

Will is picking the very last of the tomatoes off his vines. Some of them aren’t quite ripe yet, but rumor has it the season’s first frost could come tonight, and he doesn’t want to take any chances. While he’s piling them into a basket, he hears movement behind him, and he doesn’t even have to turn to know Derek is there.

“Hey, Will.”

“Hi.” Will pauses. The tomato he pulls next is completely green. “How’s it going?”

“It’s chill.” Derek sidles up next to him and investigates the tomatoes. Today, he’s in a cardigan, like he’s anticipating the cold. “Taking the last of the goods?”

“Yeah, I have to,” Will replies. “Or else the frost’ll get ‘em.”

“I know what you mean.” Derek gazes at his end of the plot. “I cut my last few bouquets earlier.”

Will glances at him sideways. “Do you, like, give them to people?”

He shakes his head. “No one to give ‘em to.” He pauses. “There’s one on my desk at work, then two in my apartment.” He folds his arms and looks at Will’s basket of green tomatoes, then meets his eyes and adds, “You could have one, though. If you wanted.”

Will chuckles. “I’m okay.”

“Well, the offer stands if you change your mind.”

Derek stands with him while he finishes gathering the tomatoes. He picks them slowly, like dragging out this small task will maximize on the time Derek chooses to spend with him before they both retreat into their apartments again.

Like always.

“So your last harvest,” Derek says. “Are you sad?”

Will shrugs. “No. Seasons change every year.”

“Yeah, I like the fall,” he replies, then nudges his arm a little as they walk back toward the building. “But hey, this might mean we won’t see as much of each other.”

“We live a floor away from each other,” Will mumbles, which. Are they friends? He’s pretty sure they are. They’ve spent an entire summer bickering and chatting and bonding over this garden. Derek even flirts with him. But he’s pretty sure friends-slash-neighbors is all they’ll ever be.

“I guess.” Derek pauses. Will hoists his tomatoes under his arm, and they meet eyes, and for a moment, Derek is looking back at him and Will’s stomach is butterflies.

He opens his mouth to say goodnight. And at the same time, Derek says, “Do you… wanna come upstairs for dinner or something?”

Dear giftee, there is a part 2 to this! Stay tuned and I’ll make sure you get it.

[its-too-heavenly-here]

6/8/20 Update- So sorry it's been so long since I've talked on here folks; I've been focusing most of my energies on activism in light of what's going on in the US (and the world). Black Lives Matter. Black souls are under attack, Black bodies are being brutalized, and while I've still had time for the homesteading, the energy has gone to fighting injustice.

With that out of the way:

-dug up around 20 worms for each strawberry bucket, hopefully they'll break up the soil in there and give the berries some nutrients. The sprouts are still there, but I'm not seeing growth like with the other plabts

-grass has taken over the raised bed, and I spent two hours today pulling up as much as I could. It's hard work, and there's still plenty left

-despite that, our single green bean plant is holding out so far and

-our broccoli, carrots, snow peas, tomatoes, squash, pumpkin, zucchini, and cucumber are all doing fantastically. The tomato plant has just grown massive and I can't wait to see the flowers turn to fruits

-the sunflowers out front are doing well, still small, but seemingly thriving

-even though this is all very hard work, and very muddy and sweaty work, nothing really improves my panicking/depressed mind more than spending a few hours suffering for even a little chance at producing my own food. Even if nothing big is produced this summer, just seeing the results of all my labor does so much to make me feel like I'm accomplishing something

-when this garden has run its course and the weather gets cooler, I really want to mass-plant leafy greens- lettuce, kale, spinach at least. What are your favorite varieties? Give me some ideas 💚

-found another walnut at the back of the yard, where the two suspected walnut trees are, plus I'm certain now that our big tree in the middle is some kind of Maple, even if my family says otherwise

-I actually just got in from hours of work outside, and so I'm going to try to cool down and rehydrate (lol) and maybe read a book or try some craft or other

-tl;dr start a veggie garden if you can! It's the best!

[greenlife2020-blog]

How to Grow a Mint Garden

A way to grow a mint garden will give you the gear on the best methods to begin, nurture and harvest your herb garden for excellent effects.

“I develop my veggies and herbs. I love being able to tell people who the lunch I’m serving began out as a seed in my backyard.” – Curtis stone

Developing mint is best for starting gardeners because its one of the easiest herbs to begin and care for.

It is a perennial and is hardy in zones four-nine.  there are 25 exceptional varieties to try to your garden.  it grows 2-3 feet in height.  

With good enough water it grows vigorously.

Mint goes properly with shellfish, meat, fish, chicken, peas, beets, carrots, cucumbers, eggplants, lettuces, potatoes, summer season squashes, tomatoes, and fruits.  

Mint has been grown for heaps of years everywhere in the world.  it’s a completely flexible plant that is used for a couple of purposes.

Mint is a completely invasive plant, so ensure you maintain it contained either in a far-flung a part of the garden or inside the optimum technique of field gardening.  

It's going to develop in full solar and partial coloration.  if your weather is especially hot, make sure to develop it with partial coloration.  for colder climates, try to plant in the full sun.  

While mint is going dormant, (wintry weather in bloodless climates and summertime in hot climates) you need to prune the mint.  

Fertilize your plant with organic count once in keeping with yearAt the stop of the dormant season.   it doesn’t want a whole lot of fertilizer because it’s a hardy plant and too much fertilizer can kill the plant.

Sprinkle the fertilizer alongside the base of the plant.  you need to make sure not to position it on the plant’s leaves because it may burn them.  

When you fertilize the plant, make sure you water it properly.

Why you need to develop mint:

1) why drink sugary beverages whilst instead you can infuse your water with this high-quality herb and various fruits for pennies?  

2) mint is a herbal pest deterrent inside the herb, vegetable or flower lawn.  

Three) keeping a fresh mint handy approach usually having a herbal breath freshener at your fingertips.  

4) sparkling mint makes great cocktails that your pals and family will love.  

Five) tie a handful collectively and upload it in your bathtub for a refreshing exchange of tempo.6) dry the leaves and make your very own mint tea.  

7) mint adds a scrumptious taste to cooking.  

8) in case you make your clean juice, juicing a few leaves of mint alongside your different produce adds a zing in your drink.  

Nine) you can add mint on your self-made cleaning soap recipes and other DIY beauty products.  

10) making your very own mint-infused oil is simple and can be used in self-made cleansing merchandise and to maintain your own home and vehicle smelling fresh and smooth.  

11) peppermint propels mice.  dry leaves and vicinity in small mesh luggage.  add the bags for your pantry, closets, attic, and storage.  

12) you can make candied mint leaves to feature an ornamental touch for your desserts.

13) plant mint in pots close to the entrances of your homes to hold ants from entering your private home.  

14) mint makes a lovely garnish to your dishes.  

15) chocolate and mint pair together well.

How to develop mint from seed:

Mint can be grown from seed yr-round if its miles being grown indoors and maybe grown-up until two months earlier than fall’s first frost.  

Begin with a seed starting kit.  you could find them here.  

Preserve the soil moisture.  in 7-14 days, seedlings will emerge.

How to grow mint:

The very best manner to develop mint is to genuinely purchase trays out of your neighborhood nursery and plant.  

You need to space them as a minimum of 6 inches aside.  complete sun or partial color would be the nice developing conditions.  

The plant can grow up to a few feet tall.  

How to develop mint in pots:

Maximum types of mint are very invasive, so maintain them in check make sure you develop your plant's inboxes.  

Mint ought to be planted in early spring, so the roots can grow earlier than the advent summer season.  

Ensure you water your vegetation on an everyday foundation.  test your soil along with your finger to determine how frequently you need to water.

How to Grow Mint Indoors: 

This is one herb that’s pretty easy to grow indoors, year-round.  

The containers you grow your mint should be wide and have good drainage.  

Make sure you place your mint in a room with lots of sunlight and that has a temperature of over 60 degrees. 

Mint will stay happy if you keep the soil watered.  

How to Grow Mint in Water: 

If you want to root your mint in water, make sure the cuttings are between 5-6 inches, cutting right below a node.  A node is where the leaves grow.

Remove all the leaves except the top ones.  

Place the cuttings in a glass with water about an inch tall.  

Place the glass in a sunny window with light at least 4 hours a day.  Change the water every day.  

Replant the rooted cutting in a pot with moist soil.  When the planting outgrows the pot, replant in a larger pot or the ground.  

Harvesting Mint Plants: 

Let the root system of your plants develop before harvesting the leaves.  You should wait 4-6 weeks after planting.  

Make sure you consistently prune your mint.  If you do, it will promote succulent growth versus growing a woody plant.  

Cut each stem you harvest at least two inches above the ground, right above a set of leaves.  (When you cut the leaves, it encourages new growth.) 

Select leaves which are unfastened from brown spots or trojan horse damage.

Varieties of mint plants:

The most popular mint flowers are peppermint and spearmint. did you know that there are masses of different sorts of mint? here’s only a few:

Apple mint –

This mint is once in a while referred to as a round-leaved mint. it may be utilized in making apple mint jelly.

Chocolate mint –

I like the taste of chocolate mint. I infuse it in my water and upload a bit stevia to make it best.

Cinnamon mint –

This mint has a pleasant clean cool taste. with only a contact of cinnamon taste, these leaves can be added to warm or cold tea for an awesome taste.

Orange mint –

This plant has crimson-tinted green leaves to go along with its citrus fragrance. it’s a perfect addition to a fruit salad or any dish that has orange, lemon or lime juice.

Summer drinks get a lift of flavor whilst this tasty herb is introduced.

Mint plant uses:

1) location a mint leaf in each compartment of an ice-cube tray. add water and freeze.

2) make cleaning soap. 

3) you could also make your mint important oil.

4) make your very own mint tea. use 1 tablespoon of dried mint leaves per 8 ounces of warm water. allow it steep for five minutes. remove infuser out of your cup or teapot.

5) for a herbal pest repellant spray, combo eight oz. of mint leaves with one quart of water. strain mixture and location in a spray bottle.

Spray your plants every eight-10Days to preserve aphids and caterpillars away. 

We’ve reached the stop of a way to develop a mint garden. 

I am hoping you enjoyed it. let me recognize in the comments below in case you grow mint on your garden and a number of the ways you use it in your recipes and crafts.

[unsoundedcomic]

Uh this isn't an unsounded question so not sure if it's appropriate to ask here, but I remember you saying you had a strict and healthy diet for reasons, and I'm wondering if you have any favorite recipes for veggies. Trying to eat healthy but also I'm poor and I'm really tired of eating cooked carrots with everything. Anything come to mind offhand?

Haha, my diet hasn’t been as strict and healthy in the last six months... I’ve been so busy with work that I’ve been eating out waaaay too much.

But vegetables still rock. My favourite prep and probably the easiest is roasting them. Broccoli, carrots, cabbage, brussel sprouts, red potatoes, squash, pumpkins, beets, zucchini all roast amazingly. Buy what’s cheapest. Chop them into bite-size bits then spread them on a baking sheet in a single layer and let them go for twenty to thirty minutes at 400F. Throw a few cloves of garlic in there with them. Some people will say to coat them in olive oil first but that just adds calories. Doesn’t need it. Dash with salt though. Salt brings out the flavour of things. For afterwards you might consider looking in the spice aisle for a good seasoning blend. I have a spice shop I visit now and then that has a lemon garlic herb blend that I put on roast veggies, but also just black pepper is nice. Or if you’re feeling fancy, buy a bottle of balsamic reduction. Alessi makes some nice flavoured reductions. They are a little pricy (less so at Walmart, look for them by the vinegar) but just use one tbsp at a time and a bottle will last a long while. Put said tbsp into a bowl with your roasted veg and toss to coat. Hopefully your garlic is soft enough it breaks open and joins the party. Scrummy! Bonus status effect: your garlic-infused tongue can be used like a Belmont’s whip.

Might be more effort than you’re into though on any given night though, so look in the frozen veg section for the single serve veggie sides. A lot of them come sauced and are quite tasty and low in calories. Just pop that in the microwave.

Salads are also very nice. I don’t usually use greens in my salads just because it’s hard to get through a whole bag before it starts wilting and that’s a waste of money and food, so I usually do more of a crudités: cucumber, carrots, cherry tomatoes, celery, maybe a chopped apple or berries depending on what dressing I have and if they were on sale. A pretty typical meal for me is a whole bowl of chopped veg with like a piece of fish or a few boiled eggs.

Or at least it should be. I gotta lay off the donuts and Italian market!

[whiskeynovember]

some light maintenance this morning.

i dug up the edamame seeds (only found 2 out of the 7, sadly) and planted them in the strip area behind the plants close to the house. I'm currently soaking 7 of the harvested seeds and will plant them along the rest of the area later.

now that I think of it .. i wonder if I can buy dry soybeans at a grocery to plant? i guess I could have looked in the bran section, but I don't always think if that. I'm sure if find it, it will come out way cheaper than buying 10 seeds at a time. 😆

found a place to settle the watermelon pots in preparation of planting. I'm not going to have them climb, instead they will trail around plot 2 and maybe the patio, so I need to keep up with weeding around the border.

tomatoes are starting to ripen. the transplanted tomato is slowly coming back to life. the greens are still being chomped on by some random creature...

i moved one of the Thai peppers down to give them more space and discovered that after morning water and even manual watering, only the first inch or so of soil is wet and the rest is bone dry. i wonder if that's why my peppers aren't doing to well. so now I need to go through and aerate the soil to make sure the water is oenetrating at least 6 inches or more.

3 out of the 7 yard beans are doing well. the 2 edamame plants I left look like they're growing more leaves and the pods are getting fatter. I'm now starting to wonder if I harvested the rest of the beans too soon. part of me is feeling like I may just chaos garden the beans into that area since I have so much going on with the poppies edamame, radishes, and encroaching cucumbers...

could be a fun time.

i repotted the strawberries and added some more seeds to the sides. i mixed some orchid bark in with the soul and it's cute. do t know how well it will work, but I keep having issues with soil compacting in the pots, so it's worth a shot.

i have one strong black diamond watermelon seedling and the 3 sugar babies are at a tie. i only need to off one.

still no roots on the stevia, oralegano, or parsley. still no sign of life with the rogue seed. cilantro is pushing forward.

i was going to buy squash yesterday but I have no place to put them. i could pull up the mesclun, but I need something that won't fuck with the tomatoes. I've actually been thinking of pulling them up and putting them in the tower so I can move them to more shaded areas (and away from the hungry creatures.

[turtlesandfrogs]

What’s a Gardener to do in December...(pt. 1)

Many of us in the northern hemisphere are thinking about what we want to grow next year (... unless you'rein Florida, apparently >.>) , and if you’re new to gardening, now is a fine time to start brainstorming and planning. This is part one of a series about garden planning, and will focus on:

Figuring out what you want to grow (or grow again).

I typically start by reviewing the year, and what I felt succeeded, what failed, and what I want to plant more or less of next year. If it’s your first year gardening, I would humbly suggest you start by answering two questions: 

1.) What do you want to grow?

 2.) What thrives where you live? 

This post aims to help you find an answer to the first question.

                        What do you actually like eating?

The first step, of course, is figuring out what you like to eat. Green beans and radishes might be prolific and easy to grow, but if you don’t like eating them, that’s just wasted time, money, space, and effort. 

My focus is on growing edibles, and more specifically, growing edibles that will reduce our grocery budget as much as possible while also being easy to grow. Sound like a challenge? Not as much as you may think, given that many things that are expensive to buy in stores are expensive not because they are hard to grow, but rather because they are hard to ship and store, have a very limited shelf life, or are just unusual. 

Some general examples of food in this category (at least in my zone) are leafy greens like spinach, lettuce, bok choi, kale, arugula, chard, etc and a variety of herbs. These grow like weeds here. If you really want to know for sure what will be cost effective for you to grow, one thing you can do is track your receipts for a month or more, writing down how much you spend on each type of vegetable. This also helps you get an idea of how much you should be trying to grow. Compare the money spent with how much space, effort and time each vegetable will take, and you should get a pretty clear idea. 

When I did this for us, it turned out that the foods we paid the most for were, in decreasing order: spinach, kale, broccoli, basil, red bell peppers, carrots, red onions, and garlic. Obviously, if you don’t like analyzing data as much as I do (I build spreadsheet in for fun in my spare time) you can probably just guesstimate from memory and end up pretty close.

Now this does leave two notable large blindspots, namely the things that we’d like to eat a lot of but don’t because they are too expensive and things I won’t buy in stores because the quality is just disappointing. For us, these include fancy potatoes (*sigh*....rose finns...), fresh herbs, various uncommon greens, lemon cucumbers, brussels sprouts, basil, cherry and yellow pear tomatoes, artichokes, bok choi, asparagus, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and gooseberries. In fact, you can't even find gooseberries in stores here. It's very sad.

So I combine these two lists to help me decide what to grow, and end up with a starting list that looks something like this:

Spinach

Kale

Broccoli

Various uncommon greens like: minzuna, tatsoi, miner’s lettuce, perilla, turnip greens and vietnamese coriander.

Basil (which I'm actually growing indoors over the winter)

Red bell peppers

Carrots

Garlic

Fingerling and fancy potatoes

Herbs

Lemon cucumbers

Cherry and yellow pear tomatoes

Brussels sprouts

Basil

Artichokes

Bok choi

Asparagus

If I have extra money in the seed budget I might consider things that aren’t cost effective for me, but I want to grow any way. For example: corn, luffa squash, and fancy potatoes.

This brings us to step two, figuring out:

                         What thrives where you live?

Which will be the next post in the series. Have any questions? What vegetables do you want to grow next year? What does your list look like?

Part 2

Part 3

[deddyinfo]

Essential Tips for Starting a Balcony Vegetable Garden

Essential Tips for Starting a Balcony Vegetable Garden

No winter last-places forever; no spring bounces its turn. There is a sweetness in life-time that does not fade. Winter, it’s time for residence. January and February are such a good time to plan your balcony vegetable garden-variety. Oscar Wilde once said, “Wisdom comes with winters.

” The preparation of our neighbourhood of growth, but most importantly, the preparation of our recollections is the key to a successful and worthwhile vegetable season. Read the rules and regulations for your construct if you live in a rental property. How much extra value can your balcony/ patio take? The weight of the pans full of clay plus ocean and last but not least the plant itself. You can be utilized lightweight receptacles made of plastic, fiberglass or dust culture bags are combined with lightweight mixtures.

If your balcony can brave ponderous onus, can you perform fostered wooden berths use to use your infinite more effectively. 2. Calculate the time you have Maintenance is important, even in a small garden.

  There is only one simple rule: if you is not have time, you should low-maintenance vegetables develop. Tomato, loot, herbs, nuts, zucchini, cucumber.

.. But even they still need to be careful. Even if your balcony is large, I still recommend starting small-scale and gradual. You can always buy and flower more, but if you start slowly you can get a feeling of what works and what is not before making an investment/ commitment too large.

3. Draw up a plan before you start. Do not just buy veggies that are ready to plant, unless you want to deplete a fortune. Buy seeds or ask for friends or gardeners in your community. Try to find sales cups or shape your own container.

The only thing you have to spend good coin on, is potting clay of good quality. Regular “dirty” and cheap moor is not sterile and campaigns diseases and difficulties. A balcony vegetable garden with a few cases containers is maybe not very expensive, but it also depends entirely on what you want there.

  It is therefore better to take your time to avoid out of budget. 4.

Choose the right floras for your balcony. Do not waste time and duration on seeds which is not going to flourish. Now are the three single most important factor: how much sunlight, gust and how hot your balcony is going to be. And of course, choose the privilege vegetables for the season. The most important issue is the amount of sunlight.

Determine the exact amount of sunlight that receive your balcony during the growing season. Keep in imagination that most vegetables require at least 6 to 8 hours of sun per day. Does your balcony face south and receive direct sunlight all day long? If so, you have the ideal balcony to grow veggies( like mine ). Numerous heydays, and most veggies, if it is well watered, will like it.

If your balcony examines to the north or the most of the day is shaded by other structures, you should looking for herbs or veggies that they are able stretch in partial shade.

  There are also vegetables that elevate more sunlight, but can grow in the subtlety – it will grow more slowly. Meanwhile, the darknes get no direct sunbathe or manifested light-colored during the day. This is simply not a good target to grow vegetables. Most plants need light to grow.

But I have people’s success floors with lily-white asparagus, chicory, ripens, microgreens, wheatgrass learn … Is your balcony or terrace breezy? Watch out for extreme conditions.

The higher “youre ever”, the more wind you are likely to have, and red-hot drying hurricanes can dry out your seeds abruptly. Build a trellis or cable mesh which can block the prevailing wind while it helps to climb vineyards. If the wind bakes up, you really stay on the water.

  There are ways to create windbreaks to protect fragile flowers by larger bushes that are wind accept is to plant before the softer. You are also welcome to use plants that do not like gale, plaza in low containers near the storey to give them more protection.

How sizzling is your balcony? Balconies and ceilings in urban areas can get hot at night in summer. Not all seeds thrive in extreme heat, e.g. Lettuce, hence, it would be advisable to make this into account when planning.

I achieved success in the summer with loot under a raised bed of other vegetables! It is also important to cover the grind to retain water. If done properly, the membrane shortens the time required for irrigating, weeding and pest authority. Overall, it came better, healthier arising in fruits, vegetables and flowers. 5.

You need a proposal in advance. Prepare pre-layout according to the size and contour of your balcony. A big representation on paper is enough to give you an account of the opportunities that you have in your gap. Arrange beds and largest receptacles around the outside to determine space and disperse heavines evenly.

    Balconies are usually microclimates, which differs greatly from the environment on the ground.

There may even be different microclimates on a small balcony. If an locality is shady, it can be one climate, if another area is exposed to the wind, it a different atmosphere. So opt which vegetables to develop, is the key to a successful harvest. Vegetables that blush from a bud, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and squash, does not like disreputable neighborhoods. Plant it in full solar areas that get the most direct sunlight per day.

Root veggies such as beets, carrots and potatoes can also grow in partial shade with less direct sunlight, but appreciate at least half a daytime full of sun. Leaf vegetables such as leaves, spinach and lettuce is the most tolerant vegetable growing in the shadow. If you keep these seeds in the color as the season progresses, it will last longer. 6. Healthy soil is the key Healthy soil is the key to growing strong, dynamic weeds which resists pests and diseases and displays abundantly.

Soil is living and consists of many constituents, including mineral specks, liquid, organic matter, breath and microorganisms.

  The symmetry between these personas is what needs to be maintained for a healthful garden-variety. Like all living thing, soil is required to be fed become a nourishing environment offer to grow your vegetables. Do not feed it with cheap chemical fertilizers. Long before the brand-new proliferating season began, I evacuated the bowls from last-place season, sifted through the clay and the root system, remove all hidden insects, grass or debris.

    Baked the grunge in the sunlight are responsible for ensuring that weed seeds, insect eggs and pathogens then destroyed. And the most important thing is that you return the nutrient material in your soil. I have Bokashi compost used to form fertilizer from organic kitchen garbage. I even included flower debris to Bokashi. The round of life is complete

The mixed compost too helps to kill the pests and weeds.

    Cover it or wrap it, keep it coming incubated for a few weeks. 7. Indoor sowing& Use mini greenhouse to sow early With cold weather in Germany is it also necessary to to harvest in early July to harvest in early July. If you have a greenhouse, you can some types of vegetables point of February, mid-March, sown: carrots, pakchoi, some herbs ..

. If the nighttime temperature are greater than 10 deg C, seed can be sown outside. That room you can have more collect than usual. 8. Polyculture is the healthy route of vegetable garden.

If you have different or more cultivates of different embeds grown in the same environment, you produce greater provides and less office. All embeds will wonderfully promote the development of the other and also protect one another from pests if they pick the companion carefully. It can be overwhelming at first, therefore, we need to have a good plan before we start planting.

  I disseminate carrots with immediate radishes together in a berthed. Carrot seed makes forever to bud, while radishes merely take a month to harvest, and you can grind through it, which then thrives the opening for the roots.

Or enormous seed like turnip. Although it starts small-time, it gets highly thick. Intermediate door and intermediate door, weed fast pastures such as radishes, projectile or lettuce. By the time the prime bushes originate in their expanse, you will have gathered all your crops. 9.

Change crops every year As harvests yearly embed in different grimes, forecloses nutrient reduction and the cycles of besets and illness are interrupted, so that the garden-variety soil remains healthy. Meanwhile, monoculture is against any form of traditional harvests and cultivation of meat. They replant the same harvests in the same field, without any other kind of flowers. It is the basis of large-scale farm organizations who have been trying to control our nutrient resources for decades. I follow the three-year rule for all vegetables.

Members of the same plant family should not be more than formerly every 3 or four years seeded in the same soil.

  Broccoli, for example, shall not be required to be be germinated after green, since they are both members of the clam lineage. That’s it for today! See you in other horticulture vlog :).

  Read More: 10 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting a New Vegetable Garden

    from https://ift.tt/3qgQ85U

[ancientbrit]

Natter # 19  09/04/2016

Subject: MI MG Natter #19 Date: September 4, 2016 at 10:16:01 PM PDT Cuttings continue to delight me. Out of the pot of eight "Seven Sons" I took on the 9th of July, I notice that there are at least two cuttings sending out new growth. Given the date and not knowing their growth rate I will probably need to protect them over the Winter. That's probably true for all the other cuttings that I am seeing now sending out new growth, amongst which are Fuchsias - at least eight different varieties and about 30 total in number. Then there is the very precious Daphne and the two Viburnum carlesii, two different Jasmine, and others. It has been a rather successful Summer I think. I have really enjoyed the eight or so propagation talks I have given so far and I am just starting to hear back from some of the attendees about their successes or otherwise. I have one more talk to give, in September I think it is, but I cannot remember when or where, so I hope whoever asked me to do it, remembers in time to remind me! Today I lifted the last of my Ailsa Craig onions and I will check their weights in a few days to see if I can challenge my record. The shallots are doing very well too and I will probably lift them next week after the expected rain has moved through - might make them put on a little weight. Right now they are about the size of a soft ball so they are not doing badly at all. I will be lifting my spuds in the next few days too I think, although I don't expect too much from them. I was a bit lax in looking after them this year, forgetting to earth them up, so I am not sure what I can expect, but I will soon find out I guess! Further to that, I had a few seed spuds left over from the planting. I had cut them to make the most  of the seed, but I ran out of space and they have been sequestered in the garage since I bought them at the F&G show in February! I was totally amazed that they are still viable, although the original seed tubers have shrunk somewhat. As an experiment I took them over to the ex-Onion patch and planted them today, just in time to catch the first rain drops. My hope is that they will grow and produce a few small spuds in time for Christmas Dinner. They will take a little while to show above ground being a bit whizzened, but with the promised rain to come in the next few days I think they will make it. If they don't there is always TJ's to rely on. My next year's veggie crop will be somewhat different I feel. For a start I won't grow Sun Gold tomatoes again. Great taste though it has, the skins are rather tough and the plant itself grows like a weed. I find it difficult to get into my greenhouse right now as it has grown up to the roof and has come down again in several places and I am fed up with ducking every time I go in. It has also compromised a nearby cucumber which has since stopped producing, when normally it has produced something like 3 every two days. I will probably return to my old favorite English Heirlooms - Ailsa Craig and Alicante - lovely fruit about the size of a golf ball and masses of them. Perfect fruit, red, no blemishes and great flavor. Plus of course my banker - Early Girl. My Melons haven't done so well this year either. Although they were kept watered every day, the leaves have shrivelled and although they set fruit which has grown, the whole lot fell down the other day, so down they stay and I hope they do something - grow a bit bigger and ripen, but who knows now that Autumn seems to be here. I will have erected my fence too before Winter comes, to keep out those dad blasted deer. They have totally destroyed my runner bean crop, by eating every leaf and flower from ground level up to about seven feet. What set above that had been hidden until yesterday and now I find that they are too far gone - just tough and stringy. A total waste of time, money and effort. The Cool Plants & Hot Topics event gets ever closer and just to give you a heads up, you should know that together with Joan Helbacka's talk on Spring Bulbs, you will be offered the chance to order some of those self-same bulbs from Brent & Becky's Bulbs then and there. We have arranged to have Brent & Becky's catalogues available at the event, so that bulbs that take your fancy at the talk can be ordered before you forget. I have ordered their bulbs for years and I have to say that they are of first class quality and then some. I do hope that you will all attend the event and/or volunteer in some way. Whichever, be assured that your presence is needed - we won't be able to do it without you - quite literally and as we hope that it will become an annual event we must remember that you only get one chance to make a first impression. As of this moment, there is just one volunteer for the afternoon shift and I am not sure what we are going to do about that. There was a request sent appealing for volunteers a few days back but the response has been miserable, hopefully it will be alright on the day, although I would rather KNOW it was going to be okay before going in. Last week a client referred to me as "The Hat guy without the hat". I had to explain that both hats are in the shop for their annual refurbishment. The BIG hat had become a trifle heavy on long periods giving me a headache. My birthday hat was starting to get a little the worse for wear and so my friend who made both hats is also refurbing this one too. Bracing things up, probably replacing a couple of tea bags and shuttlecocks and generally giving it the dust & clean it deserves. One or the other, or maybe even both will be back in service by September 24th - wouldn't be a MG plant sale otherwise now would it? Today (4th September) Karin, Paula and I started under several clothing layers. 'Twas a mite nippy at first, but eventually were rewarded and things warmed up - clients started to arrive too, which is always a good thing. Old friends and new arrived over the hours, including my old drinking and dancing partner from last year. Lovely lady and I don't think I will ever forget the story. Just wonderful! I have been sticking cuttings into one of Alison's "Forsythe pots" as she has great success with hers. everything seemed to be going well, although the center pot was getting through water at quite a rate which puzzled me - until that is a looked through the windows one day and saw my cat Pickle drinking from it! There were several samples brought in that had obviously been effected by the dry Summer. Cucumbers, other squashes, tomatoes and on. At least I would hope that by next year people will remember about watering regularly and sufficiently. Previously I had no idea that irregular watering and/or varying temperatures caused cucumbers to develop bitterness, in spite of what Carin had to say. I just have never had the problem, thinking that since cukes are about 90% water they obviously need a fairly copious supply to grow properly. Perhaps I have been lucky in that regard. Rhododendrons also seem to be getting affected, as we had a second sample brought in with collapsed leaves and shrivelling stems. We suspected a nasty sounding fungal attack - 'can't remember the name now and I certainly couldn't spell it without referring to the treatise, but we sent it in for confirmation. The year seems to be dwindling down quite noticeably now, although I did promise an Indian Summer to a couple of ladies, so I will keep my fingers crossed - it has always worked in the past, but maybe this year........! Until next time then, Your fearless leader, Gordon

[benjamingarden]

This Month On The Farm: October 2020

  Our first snow has arrived!!  Ok, so it was only about an inch, but, nonetheless, it arrived on the second to the last day of October.  And with it came some significantly colder weather including our first below 30 degree night. 

While the majority of our summer garden ended in September, we were the happy recipients of additional garden goodness throughout October in the form of cabbage, broccoli, green beans, squash, beets, carrots, peppers, tomatoes (the first half of the month), and herbs.  Needless to say, our freezers are chock full.

Garden Wins And Fails

Let's start with the fails and get those right out of the way. Eggplant, for some reason, did not do well for me this year.  I've never ever had an issue with it but 2020 was no ordinary year.  Cucumbers, too, did not produce well for some reason.  I've always struggled with melons, and this year, of course, was no different.  They did ok, not great.  And, of course, because of the early-on visits by the whistle pig (with the enormous appetite) who adored all things green, we had a rough start with greens, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and carrots.  Many eventually came back and others were replanted.

And the wins......  My peppers did outstanding this year as did my squash, tomatoes, beans, peas, sweet potatoes, and pretty much everything else in the garden.  Partial credit, I'm sure, goes to the soil that we continue to amend.  Partial credit also goes to the fact that I had time to weed, pick bugs, water, and do all of the things that make a garden happy.

On October 30th, the night temps dipped into the 20's, so I pulled of all remaining veg except for greens (kale, chard, arugula, mustard, and loose leaf lettuce).  I've left them growing but we did not get our tunnel made for the raised bed they are in so, unfortunately, I don't think they'll last long with just a cloth row cover.

Oliver & Jackson

Well, back to the specialty veterinary clinic we go.....  

Poor Ollie has been having some issues, come to find out he has multiple herniated discs.  He is doing well and it's nice to know what we're dealing with instead of guessing.  Initially we all thought (us and his neurologist) that he may have a brain tumor like Emerson as well, but it was ruled out with an MRI (thankfully!).

And then there's Jack.  Wouldn't you know that Mr. Jackson has a heart murmur, discovered at his annual check-up, and is now scheduled to see a cardiologist?  That guy must have been jealous that Oliver got to travel to see specialists......  Unfortunately they are booked until February, so as long as he doesn't show any signs of distress, he will go at that time (they will get him in as an emergency if need be).  

We expected this would likely come at some point as one of his litter mates has had some heart issues for a few years and is now on medications to keep it under control.  So, Jack will, at the very least, have annual appointments with a cardiologist to keep an eye on his heart.  And in case you're wondering, no, his heart murmur does not stop him from harassing Oliver or biting our toes at night.  

Some things will never change.

delicious apple cake

In The Kitchen

We haven't been out to eat or purchased food to-go since February so our kitchen stays quite busy.  Breakfasts remain fairly simple although I did make Cinnamon Swirl Bread and Blueberry Scones this month, just because.  For lunch we didn't make the switch to soups because of the moderate temps.  Instead, we continued to use the outdoor grill, make quick sandwiches or salads, and of course enjoy leftovers.

Dinners were fairly standard since we've been busy with our soap business.  I did try this recipe for Chicken Fajita Rice for Jay and he loved it. 

For dessert I tried this Apple Cake recipe and it is soooooo good.  As I've noted before, we very rarely use processed sugar, however, we do make exceptions from time-to-time and this cake is worth it.  I did cut the brown sugar used in the actual cake batter in half because I knew it would be way too sweet for us.  It was still definitely more then plenty sweet in our opinion.  I also substituted out the egg, used oat milk & vinegar for the buttermilk, vegan butter, and reduced the oil to make it something I would eat as well, but I'm positive if you are interested in making the recipe exactly as is it will be amazing.  

Jay has asked if it could be made for Thanksgiving so I will be whipping another one up today!

In The Coop

Absolutely nothing is happening in the coop.  The girls enjoy their feed and snacks but are still on their egg laying break.  Jay has been rationing his egg consumption and we did purchase a dozen eggs from our farmer's market a few weeks back so he could make omelets and scrambled eggs frivolously.  At that time we were getting 3-5 eggs per week but now we are getting none.  So we will be buying them again....

What I've Been Reading

I've continued to enjoy reading in the evenings.  I have realized that there are a few new (to me) authors whose writing I love - K.A. Tucker, Elizabeth Berg, Louise Miller, and Heather Webber.  All write very differently but I just really enjoy what I've read by each of them so far.

Here are some of my favorites read this month.  Actually I LOVED each of these (affiliate links):

The Simple Wild: A Novel and the second in the series Wild At Heart: A Novel - by K.A. Tucker (the third and final in the series is available December 1st)

Say You Still Love Me: A Novel - by K.A. Tucker

The Last Time I Saw You: A Novel - by Elizabeth Berg

The Late Bloomer's Club: A Novel - by Louise Miller

Midnight At The Blackbird Cafe: A Novel - by Heather Webber

One that I was surprised to really like, because it's not a book I would have normally chosen, was Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb.  I really enjoyed it and am so glad that I read it.

If you have some favorites that you would recommend, I would love for you to leave it in the comments!

soap curing on the shelves

The Soap & Skincare Business

We are incredibly blessed to be quite busy despite the craft shows being cancelled and having limited tourists in our town to shop at our weekly farmer's market.  Our online store continues churn out the orders and our local regulars continue to come out.  And, the holiday Artisan Market at a museum one town over is going to be able to open so we are thrilled to have our products there again this year.

Our farmer's market usually moves indoors in November, however, we are trying to stay outside as long as possible this year.  It's been chilly, I'm not going to lie.  A couple of Sundays ago we barely made it to 40 degrees and this past Sunday we were at, I believe, 41 degrees.  We did invest in a portable heater that is fueled by propane so that will be nice.  We can put our tent walls up and turn on the heater to get warm.  It's nice because it gives shoppers much more space to shop and makes them feel a lot more comfortable as our areas COVID numbers continue to rise.

Although this post was about 2 weeks late, I wanted to give you an October update.  Thank you to those of you who have reached out asking for this and other posts.  I'm hoping to get back to posting more often soon!  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we certainly have a tremendous amount to be thankful for.  Although we usually host a small gathering for friends, we will be celebrating just the two of us (and critters of course) this year.  It will be a great day off (except for cooking) that we've looked forward to.

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

This Month On The Farm: October 2020 was originally posted by My Favorite Chicken Blogs(benjamingardening)

[shirlleycoyle]

How to Grow a Pandemic Garden

There are all kinds of reasons that people get into gardening, most of them quite practical. Maybe you need a hobby, and like being surrounded by green things. Maybe you want to become more self-sufficient in general, and harbor homespun dreams of spending long days canning, pickling, and preserving your harvest so you can crack open a jar of summer during the cold winter months. Maybe you’re looking to pull back from the cruel capitalist churn of food production and farm worker exploitation in this country. Maybe you just want to spend less money at the grocery store, or to make it easier for yourself and your neighbors to avoid it altogether.

Or maybe the current crisis has you thinking more in the long term. The coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt food supply chains, and unemployment numbers have soared into the stratosphere. Farmers unable to sell their crops are letting tons of produce rot in the fields (despite an urgent need from food banks), and grocery store workers fear the potentially deadly consequences of reporting to work. Without being fatalistic, it might not be a bad idea to take steps now that ensure you’ll have access to fresh produce a month or two from now.

During World Wars I and II, ordinary citizens in the U.S. (as well as a number of other countries) were encouraged to plant so-called “Victory Gardens” in order to take pressure off the straining food supply and spice up their own meager government rations. The humble backyard garden served them well then, and those of us alive now could benefit from a return to the practice—ideally without the racist, imperialist baggage that came with the second wave of U.S. victory gardens. When thousands of Japanese farmers were thrown into internment camps by the U.S. government during WWII, the food supply suffered but California agribusiness giants secretly celebrated. With their highly efficient farming methods and close-knit communities, Japanese immigrants had been a threat to the American farms’ profits, and their farms were lost alongside their freedom in an ensuing government land grab. The growth of victory gardens ties directly into that shameful episode, so for the sake of this piece, let’s just stick with “garden” for our purposes here (or “quarantine garden” if you’re really leaning into the branding).

Growing herbs on your windowsill isn’t doing it for you anymore, and those baleful houseplants peeking out at you from various corners around the apartment aren’t exactly pulling their weight, either. You’ve decided you want to take that extra leap and start your very own garden, so, let’s take stock. Say you live in an apartment in a major city, can afford to spend a few bucks on supplies, and have a little extra space to play around with. We’re not talking full-on backyard (in this economy? please) but you’ve got a solid few square feet of outdoor space that you’ve decided you want to draft into your personal war against free time. You’re ready for an upgrade.

That’s great, but there are a few things you need to consider before you dig in, pun absolutely intended.

Where Should I Plant a Garden?

When planning out your new kitchen garden, you’ve got to keep the old real estate maxim “location, location, location” in mind. When deciding what is going to go where, you’ll want to pick out the sunniest spot possible. Vegetable plants are the opposite of intimidating goth teens in that they love the sun and crave your attention.

If you’re working with a fire escape or a stoop, you’ll probably be in good shape, but if you’re staking out a section of a shady backyard area, it’ll be a little harder to coax your crops into cooperating. You’ve also got to consider potential weather conditions. The last thing you want is for your small leafy sons to drown the next time it rains because you planted them in a weird slopey corner of the yard, or for them to fall to their deaths from the fire escape on a windy day because your dumb ass balanced them on a step. Find a nice, level spot that isn’t going to betray you the first time it rains.

How Much Sunlight Will My Garden Need?

Most plants require at least six hours of direct sunlight per day to thrive, and the more sun they get, the bigger, happier, and healthier they grow. Leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, and herbs like cilantro, thyme, and parsley can handle a little more shade, and root vegetables like carrots and radishes can run on only four hours if needed, but most of the beloved staples you’re going to want to grow—tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans, squash, corn, basil, rosemary—are going to want to soak up that sun.

What if you don’t live somewhere sunny? You need to get familiar with your hardiness zone (which sounds like some sort of cursed Crossfit spin-off, but is actually a means by which gardeners can determine what kind of plants will thrive in their particular area during cold weather). Seed packets and live plants will note their zones on the package; if a range of zones is provided (for example, if zones 4-9, is indicated, the plant is good to go in zones 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9). Also, use your common sense; while I appreciate your millennial moxie, you’re probably not going to be able to grow that avocado tree in Maine.

What Should I Grow in My Garden?

Now that you’ve got all that figured out, you need to decide what you actually want to grow in your garden. This year, we spent hours paging through seed catalogs trying to settle on the perfect heirloom varieties, but you don’t have to be that precious about it. Think about what you want to eat, what you like to cook with, and what you’d like to have on hand just in case. If you’re looking to harvest regularly or feed more than a few people, go with high-yield plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peas, and salad greens like lettuce and spinach.

Herbs are always a good bet and play well with other plants, though you’ve got to watch out for mint—much like the U.S. itself, a mint plant will choke out the competition and colonize every inch of space around it if left to its own devices. You can achieve a nice balance of function and form by growing pretty flowering herbs like lavender, chamomile, yarrow, and borage. These will have the added benefit of attracting bees and butterflies, which is as adorable as it is necessary to keep your plants well-pollinated. (Tip: If you’re going to be using containers, look for varieties labeled “compact,” “space saver,” or “bush;” these mini-versions of popular garden staples are bred to take up less space than usual, leaving you more room to maneuver).

Where Can I Get Plants For My Garden?

Do you want to start from scratch and buy seeds, or would you rather pick up an armload of baby plants from your local garden center? Are you going to throw in a few wild cards, like those spring onions you’ve been idly regrowing on the countertop?

If you’ve never tried to grow anything before (or have, and found yourself to be the unhappy possessor of a black thumb), it might be a good idea to start off with a few store-bought (or gifted) plants to get your confidence up before you tackle anything more demanding. You can try out some of those vegetable regrowing hacks that are always floating around Instagram, but the only one that’s ever reliably worked for me is the spring onion trick (where you simply place the white bulb roots-down in a cup of water, and watch as they regenerate into full-grown onions again).

How Do I Start Seeds Indoors?

In my own personal experience, starting seeds inside is a pain in the ass, but depending on what I’m trying to grow, it’s often a necessary evil. Some plants are tricky, and can’t be directly sown (i.e. planted directly in the soil outside). Instead, they need to be “started” indoors and kept inside until they’re strong enough to withstand the elements.

There are a number of ways to do this and endless tutorials online, but I’ve had the best luck so far with the following method. Take a cardboard egg carton, fill the little cups with potting soil, and plant each cup with three or four seeds. Keep the soil damp and stow the carton in a warm, dark place until you see sprouts, then move the babies under a grow light or under a sunny window, and let them get their strength up. Once they’ve had a week or so to grow, start moving them outside for a few hours each day to “harden” them, or get them used to the changes in temperature. Gradually increase the time spent outside for the next seven to ten days, until you’re ready to transplant them. You can then cut the egg cartons apart and plant the individual cups directly in the soil, and welcome them into their new home by giving them plenty of water. (Your mileage here may vary; seeds can be finicky little dicks, and I’ve already had to re-start like 50 of them this year. Don’t give up!).

What Are Raised Beds, and Does My Garden Need Them?

Once they’re all grown up and ready to move out, are your plants going to live in pots and containers, or are you dreaming bigger? If you’ve only got a few feet available, a couple of big, deep containers will be your best bet here. As a bonus, containers are especially good for vertical gardening. Adding a trellis, wire cage, or other support system gives vine-y plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, sweet potatoes, and beans room to climb, which is handy when space is at a premium (and if you’re feeling really ambitious, you can try to train your vines to wrap around your balcony or fire escape).

My other half (who has a background in agriculture and is fact-checking this over my shoulder as I write it) got a little fancy with our garden this year and built some raised beds. A raised bed is basically a flat box that sits on top of the soil (or concrete), and they’re great for beginner gardeners because you can control important variables like soil quality, drainage, pests, and weeds. They don’t need to be expensive, and are pretty easy to build; there are millions of tutorials on YouTube, and you can make them out of pallets or cheap lumber. (You can also buy ready-made ones, but those are needlessly expensive and I promise you can just do it yourself for a fraction of the cost). Ours are 8’ x 4’ due to the shape of our weird little front yard, but you can go much bigger or smaller depending on your situation. If you have the space for them, raised beds are a great option for city gardens, or in places where the soil is contaminated or otherwise inhospitable.

What Kind of Soil Do I Need For My Garden?

The next step is choosing the right soil for what you’re looking to grow. Different plants thrive in different kinds of soil, but basically any soil you’re going to encounter can benefit from adding compost to it, so throw a few bags of that into your shopping card before you leave Home Depot (or start making your own). Some vegetables like carrots, cucumbers, garlic, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, and sweet peppers also prefer slightly acidic soil (so do most berries!); luckily, there are a number of ways to up the dose of acid in your soil, some store-bought and some DIY. I sometimes add used tea leaves or coffee grounds to the soil around these plants, and you can also mix two tablespoons of vinegar into a gallon of water and use that for an easy fix. You can also just buy soil with a higher acidity level. (“Just buy some” is usually an option for most things when it comes to gardening, but we try to keep things as DIY and organic as possible in our garden, because this shit can get expensive).

So now you’ve got your space scoped out, you’ve got your plant babies at the ready, you’ve got your containers set up, you’ve got a bunch of dirt locked and loaded, and you’re feeling good about your setup. It’s finally time for the fun part—planting! Make sure to make a nice deep pocket in the soil to place the plant down into, fully cover the roots, and to water them thoroughly once they’re settled. Good job! You have a garden now.

How Do I Keep My Garden Alive?

It’s always a good idea to read up on the types of vegetables you’ve planted beforehand so you understand how much water each kind will need each day after that (again, don’t drown your babies!). Familiarize yourself with each plant’s needs, and settle in for the final, hopefully most fruitful chapter of your garden journey: doing your best to keep the damn things alive. It will require care, effort, and somewhat constant vigilance, but it’ll be worth it. If you spot any stray weeds, remove them; if you see a suspicious bug or odd colorations on a plant’s leaves, Google them and take care of it. I can guarantee that for any garden problem you encounter, someone else has already written a how-to guide on how to fix it.

Don’t pick things before they’re ripe, or let veggies rot on the vine. Be kind to your plants, even the ones that get droopy or don’t produce as well; they’re doing their best. Most importantly, once you start harvesting your bounty, share the abundance with your friends and neighbors (from a safe distance). Remember, nothing tastes as sweet as mutual aid.

How to Grow a Pandemic Garden syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/