Georgi Adventures in Gardening

After being on the wait list since we were dating Sean and I got a P-Patch this year. Hooray! We had plot 237B at Picardo Farm. It was 100 square feet of soil for us to do whatever we wanted with. I've never been a new parent but I think the feelings will be similar to when we first visited our plot. What do we do with it now? How do we make these things grow? Is it the right season for this? & more than anything, WHAT HAVE WE GOTTEN OURSELVES INTO? Alas, it all worked out in the end.

Big thanks go to:
-The Seattle rain in the Spring which allowed for infrequent watering and big crop yields
-The Picardo Barn with all of it's free tools and watering cans
-The helpful sign in the barn that told us how to keep our broccoli from being eaten by slugs, after we had already lost 2 of our plants (better late than never)
-Our local nursery with yummy organic starts for lettuce and good seeds for the rest of it
-Our neighbors who let us borrow their watering can when the barn's were all missing (hey don't leave it out if you don't intend to share)
-The Eggbert's who watered the garden when we were in Europe for 2 weeks
-My hubby that kept the garden alive for the last month or so since I got burnt out on (low yield= low interest in my book; everything in the basket picture is thanks to him)
-Heavenly Father for letting us have a good first experience with growing things. It was amazing seeing what the plants look like for all the foods we've been eating for years. (Sean's favorite part)

No thanks go to:
-The grass that was used as winter cover that wouldn't give up on our plot for the first month...for the love of weeding.
-The incessant rain that fell between the rows feeding the weeds. (more targeted rain that just on the plants would be awesome)
-The drive to the garden. Only 10 minutes away, but oh the effort when you are tired after work. A couple of times I definitely wanted to just let the plants die on those hot Summer days.

Most entertaining part of the gardening experience: (remember I work 30 minutes North of where we live and garden)
Amy to Sean: I am so glad it poured today we don't have to go to the garden.
Sean: It didn't rain at all today in Seattle.
Amy: Oh, well going could be fun to.

A similar conversation happened several times.

Sean with our garden when we first planted. Look how cute our babies were.


But they started to grow up so fast...


& they kept getting bigger and more mature...

& then it was time to EAT them.
(You were starting to get attached weren't you? They're just food)

That's right that bag is completely full of lettuce. We had sooooo much lettuce. We gave it away to co-workers and people at church, and we still ate it ourselves for 3 or 4 meals a week.
(Check out how stylish I am when I garden ;) only kidding this was one of those times we just stopped by to water and were like SNAP the lettuce has doubled in size AGAIN- forced pruning)

This is radish harvest day. All of the tops laying on the ground are ones I had already picked the rest I let grow for a while more. We had so MANY. This would be one of those "learning experiences" from the garden. We cracked open the radish packet and were like, "these seeds are so small- eh, well just plant them all close together no biggy" Then we got back from Europe, seriously 2 weeks later and had 100 sprouts for radishes. Lets just say that was a few more than we had planned on seeing as Sean doesn't like radishes.



This was the enormous sunflower that grew in the vacant plot next to us. It got even taller after we took this picture.


Our gorgeous tomatoes still on the vine.


This basket will be almost the last of our harvests (really Sean's harvest because he didn't give up on the garden like I did). This is round 2 on the lettuce, it kept going to seed because it was getting so big and slowly it got more bitter. So we pulled it out and started again (red and green leaf). The broccoli totally made a comeback and those are two cucumbers int the lower left. The tomatoes finally got enough sun to ripen, no thanks to the Summer sun. I am giving Fall full credit for making those babies red.