How Does Your Garden Grow?

March 23, 2012

by — Posted in Food, Gardening, Life at Home

This post could also be called, “Being faithful in the small things?”

I always get excited in spring. It’s so full of potential. The expectation of things to come: flowers, leaves on trees… warmer weather! (For one who hates being cold, this is ALWAYS an exciting thing!) In my hopeful state, I always seem to get a little over zealous with what I think I can accomplish.

For the past almost 3 years, we have tried to keep 2 landscaped areas weed free and last year we added a 3rd. Why? I don’t know. Never have we been successful.

As you can see, our 3rd is already severely overgrown.

But in the spirit of spring, I will yet again start planting things that may, or may not live past May. (It always seems to be the hottest months I fail to keep up. I wonder why.) I also apparently will be planting more than last year. I haven’t been faithful in the small things (or few things), what makes me think I will be faithful with much? Nevertheless, one of those things is a “Tator Pot.”

It’s a double pot system. You plant the potatoes and let them grown. Then, when they’ve started producing, you pull the inner pot out. It has convenient missing panels so that you can harvest your potatoes. You can then put the inner pot back and let them keep growing to harvest again later. Fresh potatoes!

I also decided to buy a tomato plant… and needed a pot. Not to mention that I needed a pot for my basil. (Again, not faithful to my basil last year.) But pots are expensive and I have a relatively limited budget for said pots. So I got a brilliant idea walking past the Easter aisle. What about an Easter basket? I decided on the $.97 plastic baskets and poked a few holes in the bottom for drainage with a paring knife. Well, one really big one on the blue bucket because it was a little more brittle. Note to self, next time, use a hot knife to avoid cracking and knuckle scraping. But here’s the finished product and a shot of my very soggy back yard:

Now to wait for things to grow!