Things have been growing great in both of my garden spaces. The home raised bed garden is my joy right now. I am so excited about it I’m practically giddy. I love that it is practically no-maintenance so far. The fence keeps critters and dogs away so everything is safe to grow. We’ve had just enough rain to keep things moist so I don’t have to water yet.
Seeds are starting to sprout. Here you can see tiny little spinach plants finally making an appearance.
A tiny sugar snap pea sprout popped up yesterday!
As an experiment I’m growing food from our kitchen garbage! No really. We had this celery end that was headed to the compost bin and I decided to just stick it in the dirt and see what happened. It has begun to sprout new growth! So I grabbed another one yesterday and planted it next to it. Growing celery from seed is difficult and takes a long time. This method is free and about the easiest thing ever.
I also rescued a wilted bit of kale from the compost that had started to grow roots while in the composter.
It was rather spindly and yellow when I first planted it but it has started to green up and grow new leaves so I think that is a winner too.
I stopped by the park garden last night to check on things but I didn’t take my camera. There was some damage from the cold weather we had earlier in the week but I don’ think it was irreparable.
This is what it looked like after I got done planting most of it last week. I have since mulched it with chopped straw and composted leaves. I have zinnia and sunflower seedlings growing on the porch that I plan to transplant here when they get a little bigger and the weather warms up more.
If all goes well we will have; sweet corn, cucumbers, watermelon (this is an experiment), pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, onions, basil, dill, mint, kale, spinach, carrots, celery, parsley, beets, and peas from my two gardens this year.
And if it doesn’t go well, we will have some of the above and I’ll have a great time trying anyway!
I’m also enjoying looking at the other community gardeners’ plots to see what they plant and how they do it. Some of my neighbors over there have quite the elaborate set ups and some even seem to move in for the weekend with canopies, chairs, picnics, and wine. I’ve seen greenhouses, solar panels, arbors, and much more put up there in the past few weeks. My bamboo teepee for my cucumbers looks pretty lame in comparison.
Another thing I really like about my Community Garden plot is that it is adjacent to the park district working farm. So after I get done I can go visit all of these guys. It’s almost like gardening at my grandparents’ farm again.
My Mother’s Day was glorious. I started it by checking on my garden and photographing my finished quilt. Then Steve, Emma and I went to one of my favorite places, Starved Rock State Park in Utica, IL for a day of hiking and wildflower viewing. Sarah couldn’t join us because she was in NC visiting a friend for the weekend. She and I will have to do some other Mother-Daughter activity this week to make up for it. Unfortunately many of my favorite park trails were closed because of recent flooding but we made a nice day of it. Steve had never been there before so we were able to share it with him for the first time. We also hiked to one canyon that we had never made it to before so we got to see something new too. We’ve usually gone earlier in the season over spring break so we’ve never seen the spring wildflowers in all their glory. It was wonderful! The only bummer was that after charging my camera all day Saturday specifically for this day, I left it on the kitchen counter after taking photos of my quilt and garden in the morning. So I have some photos from my cell phone camera but not the usual amount and quality I normally take when I go hiking there. When I get them transferred from the phone to the computer and edited I’ll share a photo album. But as is often the case, the photos just don’t do it justice.
I hope all of you had a fabulous weekend too. Now I really need to go clean my house!
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