Save the Corn

Yesterday, I had a great lunch.  I went to a Share the Harvest luncheon at Grow Alabama.  They are a multi-farm cooperative that offers freshly grown produce, meat and dairy, mostly from the state of Alabama, through a weekly subscription.  It you are not into growing your own food or don't have time to make it to the farmers' market, this is a great way to get the freshest possible food while supporting the local economy.  Everyone was super nice and provided tons of information without being preachy about it.  And the lunch was delicious.

After leaving that meeting, I was energized to return to my own garden.

At last post, I was wrestling the fact that it was time to thin out my seedlings.  With a heavy heart I did trod to the boxes and began to decide who should live and who should die.  And mind you, while I was contemplating this, I noticed that the carrots are starting to sprout, and I will have to thin those seedlings as well.  Anyway, the night prior, I devised a scheme to save the corn.  So when I went out to the garden, I carried with me an empty flat from the zinnias that I planted the yard.  Uh huh, are you getting what I did?  As I pulled out the extra corn seedlings, I replanted them into the flower flat!  Okay, honestly, now I have the problem of 35 corn orphans.  Um, any one want some seedlings?

Beyond that, the carrots are finally breaking through soil and have grown enough that I can tell the difference between them and the weeds.  The sugar snap peas and green beans have sprouted too.  Only the potatoes have provided me no action.  I can't bat 1.000, so out they came, and into the ground, some nice Japanese eggplant.  My kids don't even like eggplant, so this will be an interesting experiment to see if hands on ownership in their growth will be persuasive to their palates.

Plant Murder and Side Bar

I knew that this day would come eventually.  Oh, how I hoped that it wouldn't.  I'd hoped that I would turn out to be, yet again, a very mediocre gardener, and everything could be avoided.  But alas, I am having to face the inevitable - the garden is growing vigorously, and I need to thin out the seedlings.  This may not seem to be anything close to a big deal to everyone else; you just choose the strongest seedlings and then extract the ones in between that are too close or seem weak.  I CAN'T DO IT!!  I have, somehow, become very attached to those dried and shriveled little seeds that I dropped in the ground 3 or so weeks ago.  I watered them; I pulled out the weeds around them; I scrutinized the soil looking for little breaks where green could be seen emerging from the ground.  I counted days of sun and inches of rain.  I debated the pros and cons of watering in the morning versus the evening.  Mothering/nurturing instincts in complete overdrive, how can I kill something that I have helped create, is so young, and could potentially produce delicious food for my family - or someone else?  I blame the person who wrote the instructions on the back of the seed packet, or the seed producer themselves.  If they had indicated to me that every single seed that I planted would sprout, then, surely, I would not have planted so many and be in the position of having to rip their sweet, tender roots out of the ground.
May day, may day, anyone in my local area: if you would like some dill or corn seedlings, please let me know.  They need a good home.

On a side note, my son and I went to a beautiful farm last Friday and picked 2 boat loads of fresh strawberries (and a few onions) to bring home for feasting.  The picking process only took about 30 minutes including berry eating right off the plant time.  But let me tell you, 2 gallons of strawberries is a lot more than I thought it would be.  7 jars of jam, 2 pies, countless bowls sliced for snacks, a salad, and a full sheet pan flash frozen for future use, we are almost finished - until our next trip.  Thank you to Marsh Farms in Cleveland, AL.  The berries were delicious.

Zen garden

Today was a tough day at work.  Sometime I love my job, but today, not so much.  And as I am driving, a few hundred miles away from my home and family, I find myself wishing that I was in the garden, kneeling in the damp earth, plucking out weeds like an overly aggressive brow threader at my salon.  I can feel the satisfaction of feeling the roots give way and release from the dirt in an overgrown thready chain.  And I think about how, yesterday, I was peering over my neatly formed rows and saw the first tiny shoots breaking through the soil.  That's yellow corn and Blue Lake green beans.  And a few tiny strawberries losing the white petals from their bloom.  There is nothing like anticipation.
About that time, I am passing through this tiny town in Southwest Georgia called Ellaville.  I don't think that there is any particularly special about this place.  But there are all these cute little garden homes seemingly freshly painted white.  Azalea bushes overflow in each yard making giant splashes of jewel toned color.  The sky is blue; I can smell jasmine.  And all is good in the world again.
There is nothing like a little nature to remind me . . .  well, it doesn't remind me of anything.  But it allows me to forget the rest of the world and find a little peace.

Dig and Bury

First blog, first post, first sentence.
Well, okay, that's over with. Much better. For introductions, I'm Sharon; I live in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, and my family and I have planted a vegetable garden. Every spring, I have these great aspirations to grow lots of fresh food for my family, and every summer, something grows - plants without fruit, harvests forgotten, and lots of weeds. I'm really good at growing weeds. So I have started this blog to encourage me to not be a slacker and quit. And I want to teach my children the value of food. Hopefully, along the way, I can entertain someone else. I am assisted in this venture by my very strong husband and 2 marginally interested children.

Last weekend, I went to my parents' home, armed with gloves, manure, seeds and family, and began to clear out their fabulous and overgrown garden in the back yard. It was covered with weeds, weeds, some dead okra from a previous gardening attempt, and a lot of wildly growing Chinese garlic chives. I pulled the weeds while my husband, Jon, turned the soil. We cleared out 3 1/2 plots, planted half a plot of asparagus roots and called it a day. Feeling pretty good about our progress, I exclaimed on my Facebook page that I am going to try to become a produce locavore this summer and feed my family only things we grow supplemented by purchases from the farmers' market. But California or Florida this ain't. I hit post, and then immediately start to think of the things that I will have to make exception.

The next day, we nearly clear out the balance of the garden and plant carrots, green beans, sweet potatoes, yellow potatoes, strawberries, and 2 plots of yellow corn. Very ambitious. I also have 2 or 3 varieties of tomato seeds that we can plant in the last plots and the Botanical Garden's heirloom plant sale is this weekend. My husband already has aspirations of a vast patch of melons, peppers . . . and I look over the garden and the vast clump of hoses in the corner that resemble an intimidating cluster of snakes, and I wonder if I can actually do this.

But here I am making my commitment before you all, that I will do my best to water this garden, pull out the offending weeds, and harvest all produce grown in a timely manner. I hope I don't let you down!