Gardening

I've decided to take a brief break today from my series about grain to offer up a few ramblings about gardening. Don't worry. I'll keep it all in one post. ;)

Last year, my garden was a disaster. I planted lettuce, carrots, radishes (because a still-dear friend of our family said anyone could grow radishes), tomatoes, habaneros, and a single jalapeno plant. The lettuce didn't even show up, the carrots and radishes grew lovely leaves but next to no roots, and the habaneros which supposedly love sun were cooked to death by ours (we couldn't seem to water them enough). The only plants that gave us any fruit were the tomatoes (a full 3 feet shorter than they should have been) and the jalapeno. They looked battle-worn and weary, but they gave us about 10 tomatoes (from four plants) and 5 jalapenos (from one plant). We used them in sandwiches and for juicing. (And I swear, after eating a homegrown tomato I will only buy store-bought under pain of death.)

The year before this we tried planting sunflower seeds. They were the 6 ft. variety with huge heads bigger than my hand, fingers fully extended. That's what the package promised anyway. Ours never got above 2 ft. and the heads were about the size of my toddler's fist.

So, this year I'm going to have our soil formally tested. It only costs $25. I consider that a bargain if it means I'm going to have a decent garden this year.

In the meantime, I'm growing a couple of broccoli seedlings. Soon I'll be starting on my lettuce (maybe if I start them indoors they'll grow better?), onions and spinach.

I've also been reading, both for information and for pure fantasy. I can't help it. I get hooked by anything that has a lovely diagram showing where all the plants go, and I really go nuts if they also have a painting or photograph so you can see the effect. I'm trying to make sure my little garden plot looks just as interesting without becoming too complex. Here are some of the books/e-books I've been reading recently.

• Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. This is the first one I started with. I felt I should try to improve the soil instead of taking the easy way out by creating my own soil on top (replenishing the earth maybe?). I'm glad for the challenge but dang it! I didn't think it would be this hard.
• Momma's Guide to Growing Your Groceries by Kimberly Eddy. There's a lot of things I love about this e-book. The thing I like best is her perspective on bringing in the kids.
• Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte. A great book to help me figure out which plants to put where.
• Texas Gardening the Natural Way by Howard Garrett. The title says it all. A very good, very helpful book that covers more than just vegetables. I don't think we would have had any tomatoes at all if I hadn't used his Garrett Juice and garlic tea. It's also helped us take care of the land we're renting.
  
• Container Gardening by Sunset Publishing. Pretty pictures and easy to understand directions for using containers. My herbs are going to go into containers so I've really been studying this one.
  

I'm just really glad I didn't invest much money in my garden last year. This year I've gotten a better idea of what my soil is capable of, as well as how plants respond to the brutality of a Texas spring and summer. Hopefully, between that knowledge and whatever the soil test turns up, I'll be able to grow enough food to use in the recipes I'll be trying out from Putting It Up With Honey (Susann Geiskopf-Hadler). More on that after I've used the book a few times.