This is the time of year when I get the biggest kick out of taking care of my gardens. I grew up thinking my parents were a bit crazy for planting gardens -- flowers, veggies, herbs, etc. I would shake my head in puzzlement when I saw my father just staring out at his yard, after work in the evenings. He always had to walk around the yard before we could eat dinner.
Now I totally understand it.
After a long day at the computer, I just want to walk around the yard, noticing new plants coming up in the garden, listening to the sound of birds, watching Lola nose around.
The enormous crab apple tree in my back yard has tiny crab apples on it. We don't eat them. I am debating telling a friend who has horses to come pick some but they are so sour I wouldn't want the horses to get ill?!
I am saving coffee grounds and eggshells to put around my plants, to enrich the soil and hopefully stave off insect attacks. I composted all winter to enrich the soil.
Composting has two benefits. One, it enriches the soil and encourages worms, and worms are great. Two, volunteers come up. I have tomatoes and potatoes coming up that are volunteers. I also have shoots popping up that I am pretty sure aren't weeds, but I haven't figured out what they are yet -- it's like a surprise gift, so cool.
Above is one of the fig trees my brother got me a couple of years ago. It didn't fare well over the winter. It dropped all leaves and looked like it was dead. Now it's blossoming all over the place, and has sprigs of mint popping up. I thought I had gotten rid of all the mint last year. What an idiot! Mint is harder to kill than kudzu.
My parents lived on Melton Hill Lake near Knoxville for years, and their next door neighbor had a huge yard. He was also a close friend. Mom and Dad planted some mint near the fence, on our side. It jumped over and started growing in Ed's yard -- everywhere. After a couple of years, it had proliferated to the point where every time Ed mowed the grass, the smell of mint overwhelmed the grass smell. It was like living on top of a huge piece of chewing gum.
I was doing some marketing writing last year and I was assigned to write 500 words on how to grow mint. That was an incredibly tough assignment. I wanted to just write, STICK IT IN THE GROUND AND WALK AWAY!
Below, the garden outside my back door, which I call my patio garden. I have another raised bed in my side yard, which I've just planted with seeds this year. Last year some awful insect infestation killed everything in the side garden so this year I didn't want to invest in seedlings. Michael helped me put new potting soil in there and I just planted seeds for beans, zucchini, cucumbers, and cantaloupe. The beans are already coming up. When things get a little bigger I will post a photo.
There's a piece in the Bitter Southerner that just was posted today and it's worth the time to read. Awesome article! The Queen Bee of Downtown Durham. Read it, y'all!