Free Day Number One: Planted the Salad Bed

Hey BraceKyle,

As said in my last post, I had two days of freedom from work before my trip to Maine (stay tuned). Day One was HOT! So hot that after 30 minutes outside, I got dizzy. I took many breaks, but still managed to get my salad plot planted.

My first real harvest

SuperKasey, I’m very excited about the content of this post!  I’m excited because this thing that we’ve begun has finally yielded me my first real harvest.

Sure, I’ve snipped off some herbs and a few baby chard leaves here and there, but that’s not the same as an honest-to-god-true-blue-dyed-in-the-wool-I’m-a-big-boy-now harvest.

And that’s precisely what I’ve just had.  My first one of those.

Swiss chard and radishes!

“I don’t have my giant telephoto lens.”

Good morning, SuperKasey!  It is a Thursday in a 4-day week wherein I’m only working a half-day on Friday.  That makes it like a…Friday morning?  How does that work out in hours?  I’ll let you do the math.

My dear friend Julius recently visited me, and among our hiking and camping and watching the TV show Glee (he talked me into it; I liked it more than I thought I would, but I still don’t understand how TV shows work), he managed to snap some photos of the garden.

I was briefly proud of my radishes, but then…

Good morning, SuperKasey!  Long time no see.  Your potato situation SUCKS!  Were you able to salvage the little fingerlings, or is it a total wash?  I’m so sad!  So many tasty potatoes lost in the garden battle.

I have camped a lot lately, and that excites me to come home and dig in my garden, where things are getting big.

The radishes are coming along beautifully.  I was feeling very proud of myself, me being a new gardener and all, but then I found out that many schools have their very young children (at 6-8 years of age) plant radishes as an experiment because they are so easy to grow.  Oh.  Okay.  Now I feel like I’m bragging about finally coloring inside the lines.

I’ve intercropped the radishes with bush beans and carrots.  I’ve read that intercropping (planting different crops in very close proximity) works in this fashion, because the things that grow quickly shade the soil (keep it cool on hot days), hold moisture underground and partly block the growth of weeds.  The idea is this: intercrop when you have a crop that goes from seed to harvest quickly (like radishes) and another that takes time to reach maturation (like carrots).  It is like providing a big brother to protect the little guys from bullies at school (the bullies are the weeds).  It is working well so far.

I’ve officially reached the world of mundane tasks

Good morning, SuperKasey.  I hope you and Chicago are enduring this chilly weather.  Any frost up there?  We almost had a (light) snap frost last weekend.  I moved my remaining seedlings indoors.  Speaking of which, I have two little containers of seedlings for my beans and my arugula.  I just leave them out in the garden most of the time, which maybe defeats the purpose, but they are in their own specially fertilized little containers, so I’ll plant them once they are grown.  Here’s a bit of everything:

You are absolutely right.  Now that everything is planted, sprouted, grown and, in some cases, thinned, flowering and budding, I’ve surpassed the stage of OMIGODTHINGSAREGROWING and now I’m onto OMIGODTHEWEEDSAREVERYWHERE.

Still.  Baby weeds compared to your monsters.

Seeds are sprouting, buds are blooming

Good evening, SuperKasey.  Your recent post about which seeds to buy was educational.  I knew there was a reason to not buy those seed packets I see at the super stores.  So, do you collect seeds from the produce you pull, then?  That seems like a painstaking task.

I am now sitting here in my suit and tie after a board meeting from work.  I couldn’t be happier about stopping by my garden, seeing all the little things sprouting out of the ground and getting my dress pants dirty to thin things out a bit.

Guess what?  When you plant things and give them water and good soil, they grow!  Like these radishes:

My first planting 2K10!

Yo, SuperKasey.  Greetings from the year 2K10.  BraceKyle has officially planted things.

Double-take-say-whaaaat?

It is hard for even me to believe.  Hard to believe, also, that I just referred to myself in third person.

By seed or by plant

Hello, SuperKasey!  How is Chicago?  Windy enough for you?

This post is not about dirt.  Okay?  Stop giving me guff over my posts about dirt.  THE DIRT IS IMPORTANT!

So, as I dive into this whole shebang, I’m thinking about whether ’tis better to plant by seed or from a plant.

I hear pros and cons from both sides of the aisle, so to speak, and I think that several considerations must be undertaken.