Gardener of the Year

Remember that little plan we had to gradually increase our edible garden space, year by year? Baby steps prevent failure. Well, last year's one bed heard about the babies and had a few. There are now six.

It was actually a sprinkler problem that did us in; we just decided to devote a whole sprinkler zone (otherwise known as half our back lawn) to the endeavor. So, since I had all this space, I decided I must grow from seed, because I couldn't fill up nearly 200sf of garden space with $eedling$. And since I was buying seeds, I naturally bought 29 varieties, or $75 worth. On top of all the work - and money - of actually putting these beds in, filling them, hooking up an irrigation system, killing the grass around them all, and covering it with gravel.

Huh. Wonder why that didn't all work.

As you can see above, we're getting there.

What's not working:

• The grass isn't all dead, nor all covered with weed block. Obviously the gravel isn't yet there. We didn't even get to re-waterproofing last year's bed.
  
• What is there is extra soil parts we still haven't moved out of the way (but it holds the weed block down nicely, and makes an excellent doggie obstacle course).
• Um, gardens don't typically have this much visible dirt in July. I've got at least 2.5 beds worth of space that's not filled at all.
  
• Square foot gardening is kind of dumb when you don't fill up all the space. There are five tomato plants shoved into the back half of that far middle bed, and they're going to be a bitch to harvest.
  
• Notice the bolting arugula in the far left back corner. Pretty though.
  
• Those corn stalks on the right are actually ornamental, which I didn't notice until I brought them home. Also, it appears to be dying.
• My turnips were eaten by rolly polleys, then the remaining bits rotted in the garage.
  
• There's a hose draped over that giant bag of peat moss because we have no irrigation.
  
• Everything you see here was grown from seedlings, unless you can make out the carrots behind the corn, or the potatoes in the ground behind that.
  

Phew, so is there anything that is working?

• Five beds built & filled
• Pretty much everything I planted from seedlings is doing beautifully. That's a cantaloupe at front left. Expect many recipes. The entire back left bed is lettuces & arugula, and it's awesome.
  
• I did manage to get radishes, turnips, potatoes, and carrots to grow from seed. It's nothing I'm going to sell at the farmer's market, but I MADE FOOD.
  
• There was plenty of laziness and outright unexplained failure involved in the seed starting, but I do feel like I learned some things I can use to improve next time. I still have plenty of seeds from my buy that are still good, and it's time to start things again for cool season crops.

And just this last Saturday, we had our most local meal yet, cooked on the grill and enjoyed al fresco on the back patio. Herb-roasted homegrown potatoes, salad (romaine, buttercrunch, marvel of four seasons, arugula, carrots and cucumber, all homegrown, with homemade vinaigrette), and Marin Sun Farms chicken, served with homebrewed British Bitter.

In true Not Laura Ingalls style, the cucumber tasted like ass and had to be picked out of the salad and fed to the dogs.