Let The Growing Commence! (March 3 Garden Project)

We’re all in shock, really.  For a few months now Ellen’s backyard has been dirt.  Dirt and a lot of planning.  But no actual garden.  We just put three days of hard work in and now, all of a sudden, we have a GARDEN!  Rows of plants and stuff you could actually call an urban farm!

First we staked out beds and pathways.  Then we turned and loosened the soil.  Then came all that compost you read about in an earlier blog post.  Sprinkle a little bone meal on and turn it all together.  Here’s Marc flattening the path between two beds:

Next step was to lay out all our seedlings:

There was much consulting of the GrowVeg Master Plan:

Leek seedlings are like little hairs and you have to tease them apart and plant them individually.  Hard to believe those tiny little guys are going to be big, flavorful leeks! (That’s garlic in the foreground on the right, and the boxes are going to house potatoes.)

Time out for a snack!  I had some leftover cornbread and Ellen suggested her canned blueberries and a little heavy cream.  Incredibly delicious:

I suppose Ellen knew better when she served hers in a bowl.  Most of my cream ended up in my paper towel as I stood around the garden eating like a bachelor or something…As you can see below, Ellen probably got more cream than I did!

The Sharpie as garden tool:

So much depends

on the peaceful wooden stool

between the rows of joyful greens

in the glancing afternoon sun:

Ellen with lettuce:

Behold, our beautiful garden:

What did we plant?  Turnips, chard, kale, broccoli, carrots, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cardoons, tatsoi, arugula, spinach, leeks, garlic, parsnips, peas, radishes and lots of lettuces like Rouge d’Hiver and mizuna:

And here  is the gratuitous chicken picture.  Yes, you can have an urban garden without chickens, but frankly, it wouldn’t be our garden without them.  They bring drama and compost and tasty eggs to our lives, and we love them!