Yes, it’s another gardening post!
Jun 21, 2009 Love Your Veggies
But I’ll keep it quick, because I really need a shower. The only part of me not dirty is my hands, because I was wearing gardening gloves that are so cute I was reluctant to get them dirty (but I did because I really hate cleaning dirt out from under my nails). I came home from the Love Your Veggies retreat with a bunch of gardening gifts, including a little shovel thing, a spiky soil mixing thing, a knee pad for in-the-ground gardening comfort, and the gloves. Even if nothing grows, at least I did it with cute equipment.
I set the pots up on bricks to help drainage through the bottom, and tried to move the first bag of soil a little closer. My husband had carried it out for me before I knew where I wanted it, and I couldn’t get it moving so I spent the next ten minutes shoveling dirt from the bag to the closest pot, until it was light enough to pick up and dump the rest in. Then I dragged a second bag out, checked my pulse, decided not to call an ambulance, and filled the second pot.
I constructed a little thing for the tomatoes to climb up, and planted the corn kernals in one pot and the tomatoes and cucumbers in the other. Everything is planted way closer than every single book, website, and friend says they should be, but I’ll prove them all wrong!
I gave them a very light water, since it’s definitely going to rain later. Since the seeds are close to the surface, I’m wondering if I should cover them with something when it rains? Just until they sprout and have roots to help them stay put. Hmmm, not sure.
Something should pop to the surface in a couple of weeks, I hope.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
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Tags: gardening, Love Your Veggies
Things a gardening newbie learned today
Jun 20, 2009 Love Your Veggies
- If you think you’ll be able to show up at Home Depot towards the end of June and find seeds, you’re in for a surprise.
- Bags of potting soil are heavy. Really heavy. And if they start to slip from your grip and you try to lift them up, they spill dirt all over you.
- By mid June, Burpee.com is done shipping tomato plants.
- The really pretty, huge, well-designed strawberry pot you saw in a magazine costs $600.
- Corn cross pollinates, and since you only have room right now to grow 6-8 stalks, you may end up producing 12 cornless cobs.
- No matter how hungry your kids say they are when you stop at the local hardware store to get seeds, look carefully at what you’re buying, because bush beans are not the same a pole beans and will not climb up the corn stalk.
- If you can’t find corn seeds, you may or may not be able to buy corn on the cob, take off some kernels, and plant them. I guess we’ll find out.
- When your husband says that he will be done with your planting tub in a week, ignore him and go out and buy containers right away so that you don’t miss planting season.
Despite all that, tomorrow I’ll be planting the tomatoes, the cucumbers, and one pot (half) of the corn. Corn is supposed to be planted in warm sunny dry weather, but that’s not coming to Brooklyn any time soon, so if I wait for that, there’s more chance that I’ll be harvesting corn in the snow. So, I’m going to plant half now in the 60-degree rain, and half in a couple of weeks in the sunny dry weather. We’ll see what happens. If/when the corn germinates, I’ll plant the beans and zucchini around them.
When I was in Chicago for the Love Your Veggies retreat, sponsored by Hidden Valley Ranch, I was raring to go. I wanted to hit the ground running with the planting as soon as I got back to Brooklyn. But the renovation, back doors, and ambitious husbands got in the way. This may not be my year for yummy corn and juicy tomatoes, but I’m going to try my hardest! What gives me hope is the memory of my sister wanting to plant tomatoes when we were kids. She cut open a tomato, put a dozen or so seeds on a paper towel to dry, and planted them. We all laughed at her. Until huge delicious tomatoes started growing.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
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Tags: gardening, Hidden Valley Ranch
Bad soccer mom!
Jun 20, 2009 Love Your Veggies
I’m over on the NYC Moms Blog today, writing about how much I hated being a soccer mom, and I would love it if you stopped over and left a comment!
Today is a perfect example of why I’m glad Jake quit soccer. I lazed in bed until a little after 8, the kids playing quietly in the living room. I folded some clothes, washed some strawberries, and made pancakes for everybody. I’m still in my pjs, but am about to throw on some clothes and take the kids to Home Depot to buy some gardening stuff. Hopefully by then the rain will have stopped and we can do some planting, but if not, we’ll go to a movie.
I was supposed to plant my veggies in a big bathtub that’s sitting in our backyard. When we had the top floor bathroom put in, the new tub sprung a leak, and Home Depot let us keep the leaky one. But a few weeks ago, my husband started the huge project of sifting all of the glass and metal out of the dirt in the yard, and he’s sifting it into my tub! In three weekends, he’s only managed to sift about two cubed feet. This is going to take all summer, if not longer. I can’t wait for my tub, so I’m going to buy some big containers at Home Depot.
When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me and my two sisters to Three Sisters Islands, near Niagara Falls. He told us they were named after us, and I think for a while we believed him. But I think it’s a good bet that the islands were named after the three crops that the Native Americans would grow together: corn, which would grow high; pole beans, which would wind their way up the corn stalks; and squash, whose big leaves would make a nice ground cover to help keep the soil moist and keep out disease.
So, in one pot I’m going to make a Three Sisters Garden, and in another pot I’m going to grow tomatoes and cucumbers. If I can find a strawberry pot, we’ll grow some strawberries too. I just hope I’m not starting all of this too late, I really should have gone and bought the containers as soon as The Ass started talking about using the tub for sifting. I don’t think he realized what an enormous job it would be. But at least the kids like to help him!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
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Tags: gardening, Home Depot, Niagara Falls, Strawberry Pot, Three Sisters Garden, Three Sisters Islands
What’s for dinner tonight?
May 7, 2009 Love Your Veggies
I’m at my daughter’s dance class (well, in the waiting room anyway) with my son, and we were just talking about what to have for dinner tonight. The party I’m going to for Mom’s Nite Out starts at seven, and I most definitely won’t be there at seven. I’ll be leaving my house around then, when my husband gets home from work. But at this moment, I have no idea what I’m going to wear, I have not done my hair, and am not wearing any make-up. And I haven’t even looked up where it is or how to get there. So while I’m figuring all of that out, I also have to get the kids fed. I suggested a pizza (my default easy dinner suggestion), and Jake reminded me of the big box that arrived from Ragu a few days ago. I haven’t opened it yet, but they knew that I’d be going out tonight, and were nice enough to send dinner for the family! How great is that?
Now, the idea is that Daddy could easily prepare dinner for the kids in my absense. I mentioned this to a few friends, and they all got weird looks of mild disapproval on their faces. One said that her husband cooks better than she does anyway. Another said that the idea that the dad would be lost without dinner-in-a-box is outdated and sexist. I considered their comments for a few seconds, and then just had to laugh. I swear, we can turn any nice thing on its head if we try, can’t we? Anyway, Ragu knows that I’m married. To a man. For all I know they send different wording out to lesbian moms or single moms (if they don’t, they of course should!). And I’ll bet that even a dad who can cook would still appreciate some free food.
We have a different problem, though. My daughter goes to bed at 7:30, so I’ll still be responsible for getting the kids fed. So, depending on what’s in the box, I’m going to let the kids do as much of the work as I can while I get ready! Obviously I’m not going to leave them alone with a giant pot of boiling water (I’m assuming there’s some kind of pasta in the box), but I’m going to let them take control and do as much as they can. It fits in perfectly with what I learned last week in Chicago, at the “Love Your Veggies” retreat, that I should get them involved in the kitchen as much as possible.
So thanks Ragu, I can’t wait to see what’s in the box, and I appreciate you helping to make my evening a little easier!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
It’s 7:42! It’s 7:42!
May 5, 2009 Amy in the Morning, Love Your Veggies
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: Love Your Veggies
