..gardening experiment..

Spring has come early this year. And realistically, in our corner of the world, it has felt like summer until just a couple of days ago. With this warmer weather, I have felt the itch to do some planting. I have thought carefully about how to garden, since we are longtime CSA members. Our boxes start in June and can go all the way until December, and doing double-garden duty is only setting myself up for failure.

(Quinalt pot)

After pondering the garden question, I settled upon a few things to try in a container garden on our deck. I settled on English peas, Quinalt strawberries, French breakfast radishes, Cilantro, Dill, Mint, Lavender, and Parsley. I may add some English thyme to the mix, and perhaps a smaller variety pumpkin, but we'll see how things go with these first few containers. Once upon a time, I planted 12 tomato plants in our yard, right before giving birth to our son. That story ended with an exhausted new mother and an overly frustrated new father and a heap of rotting tomatoes. I will not make the same mistake twice.

In deciding what containers to use, I wanted to re-purpose containers we already had around the house. I was happy to discover that we had two unused flower boxes against our fence in the backyard. They work perfectly, and are large enough to accommodate the peas, radishes, and half of the strawberries.

 (Radish/Quinalt box)

I have enlisted the help of my kids to assist me in caring for the plants. Both of my girls are always looking for something to "garden," which, loosely translated, means "something I can water with my watering can." They helped me to put the rocks/chards of terra cotta at the bottom of the planters for drainage, scoop the potting soil into the container, and take compost from our yard to add to the potting soil. They were very industrious and helpful, and completely in awe of the number of worms we dug up. *yay, compost!*

Now that everything has been planted, we are just checking up on our little containers every morning. Fortunately for us, it has been particularly rainy so far, so watering hasn't been overly necessary. And we are happy to announce that our peas are coming in nicely. It is quite fun planting with my little girls, and, when he's not busy dribbling a basketball in every corner of our home, my boy.

(Pea sprouts)

How is your garden growing?