The damn garden

The damn Garden......

Since most of you haven't been to my house, I will give you a quick background.  The couple that lived here for their entire lives were very into their yard and their gardens.  We have tons of land, and looking out over the patio, you can clearly see 7 large gardening plots.  Obviously, these are quite overgrown, but they are huge, like BIG, squares in the middle of the field and it seems they go on forever.  I don't know what he grew, but I 'm fairly certain it was enough for the town.  There is also another large plot at the top of the field, and gazillions of planters everywhere.  After clearing all the leaves from the property, we found that there are plants and flowers growing everywhere!  It's insane!  This man must have spent all day, everyday gardening.  And clearly, he was good at it because they are still growing strong, without any help from us.  We even have scallions already!  Now that we know they are there, we've been caring for them, and also have opted to plant a few flowers ourselves......in what few spots we could find that didn't already have things growing!  Or I decided to plant some flowers....Justin said he'd help, but he has since decided that he doesn't care about my flowers and only the vegetables matter.  Either way, the yard is starting to look pretty and I'm excited to see what it will look like once everything is in full bloom.  I'm not excited to see what this will do to my allergies, but that's another issue.

But onto the garden.....

Justin really wanted a garden.  He was so damn excited of all the things we will grow and I'm fairly sure that deep in his head he has a vision of a farm and us living off our land and the animals we have.  (Note that this will NEVER happen, but he can have a fantasy!)  I've never grown anything in my life and I've actually killed a cactus, so this wasn't something I was incredibly excited about, but I went along with it.

 You may think that since this is our first garden, we'd start small, since that would be the logical thing.  You may also think that since there are only two of us, we really don't need a massive garden.  If you think these things, you are like me.  Logical.  But that's not what's happening here.  Justin has this "go big or go home" thing going on in his head and he cannot walk by a damn seed display without questioning if we already have it, and if not, buying some seeds.  Even when I say we already have the vegetable in question, his new habit is to buy more anyway, because clearly we need a FARM, not just your average everyday garden. 

So we started off with seeds.  I was assigned the task of planting them in their mini pots to get them started.  It begin with just a few little planters, sitting on our sun porch.  Then we got that nice hot spell....and they began sprouting.  This led to elation on Justin's part.  Once he saw even the smallest bit of success, he went crazy.  We now have gazillions of mini pots with mini seeds, sprouting away.  Being that we have a large, sunny patio, they are now lined on the edges, all around the patio, peacefully basking in the sun all day and growing along nicely.  

But he's insane.  Have I mentioned that??  He insists on moving the mini pots 3x per day.  (Or  I should say, he insists that I do this every day while he is at work or otherwise not here to do them!) They must always be directly in the sun's rays.  It is not okay if there are in the sun, but the sun is not directly beating on them.  98% sunlight is not good enough for these babies.  

And boy do we have things growing.  I didn't expect them to be so successful, so some of these mini planters had a few seeds in them.  FAIL.  I've been scolded that they are going to choke each other.  He has tried to replant every single seed so it's alone, while telling me that I should have known that fact.  (Umm...hello, I said I had NO IDEA what I was doing and I did what you told me to do when I asked how dammit!)  But anyway, he waters them daily and I'm sure he has conversation with them.  Some have names too.  (I wish I was joking!) He checks the temperature for the evenings and if it's going to get too chilly, then ALL get brought inside.  Some nights he decides this around 1am, and off he goes. Then I get the joy of putting them all back outside in the morning.  In the exact spot for their morning sunbathing.  Until it's time to move them.  Then move them again.  I've tried explaining that when they are in the ground, they are not going to be moved every time the sun moves, but it's pointless.

And about the ground they are going in....yea....well, the leaves and twigs are gone.  But that's about it.  When exactly will the "garden" be ready for the plants I wonder?  (Hopefully, for the sake of the plants, it will be quicker than the building of my bookcase......he bought the wood 3 months ago!)

But I can tell you this....we are going to have a freakin' farmers market at our house all summer, so please, come over and bring a bag!  We have so many damn tomato plants it's scary, especially since I don't even eat them and I worry he will turn into a tomato after this summer.

Either way, it keeps him happy.  I even got him a book from the library to answer his questions since he continually asks me things....even though I have made it clear that I know nothing about gardens!  He won't look at the book though, apparently, once you get sprouts you are a master gardener and don't need a book.  Hmmmm....we will see how that all works out!

So here's to the garden.  The obnoxiously large garden.  And for aiming high!  Go garden go!