Carrots in a Pot

I tried something new this year, growing my carrots in a pot. And it has worked, although they are tiny little things. I want to be a better gardener, and I'm getting a little bit better. I've been gardening since I was a kid, but I get overwhelmed easily, buy lots of things. In the case of the garden, lots of weeds, lots of plants. I have a natural propensity for saving. So if I came across a tomato plants that came up from seed, I'd want to nurture them along and then I'd have these extra tomatoes growing in the garden, smallish plants that never produce. But hey, here I am with carrots in a pot, nicely contained, not worm holes. Very exciting. Next year I'll add some manure so the soil is a little more nutricious. So I wonder how I can contain some of the things in my house, books in bookshelves, plants all in one grouping. Yes, I can get organized, eventually. I know I can.

Well I'm in the middle of getting dinner going. Soon my honey will be here. He's home from the Arctic, so I'm a happy camper. And he is too. He wants to do the entire garden ourselves next year. I like this idea. I've shared it this year, thinking it would help me get a handle on it. And it has. So with Honey's help next year, we'll have lots to eat, and perhaps some winter squash to put by. That would be nice.

Happy gardening,

Flower

Carrots

I could grow good carrots in Spokane. They'd grown long and fat and taste fantastic. And they'd winter over, covered with a pile of maple leaves, they wouldn't freeze. I'd get on my rubber boots and go to the garden in the winter, remove the snow, turn back the leaves and dig a bucket of carrots. Fresh and crisp and cold. Here in the PNW, carrots get a little fly worm in them, so there are these tunnels through the flesh and everything is ruined. This year I'm trying planting in a planter with cloth over the top--it's that cloth that breaths, light as a feather, lifts with the growth of the plant, and doesn't let the flies in. We'll see what happens, You seed rather heavilty, so the plants grow close together. Yeah, I have my peas and tomatoes in too.
Happy Gardening, Flower

Today, We're Warming Up

More thoughts about nature spirits. I was in the yard at my old place in Kingston, and I felt this pressure, like some huge energy was rolling up the hill toward me. I wanted to live in this place, with the beautiful view and the little cabin that would be replaced eventually with a lovely home, but I could feel a resistance to being there. So I lit some sage and placed tobacco about and asked permission to be on that land. And the energy, whatever it was, moved away. I felt freed to continue. Now that place is lovely, full and lush, a paradise. His, not mine. Augh!

Oh dear, that is one of my heartaches right now. Leaving a place so serene to live in, a place where trains don't go through in the night and cars don't screech and honk, and kids don't smack down their skateboards on the sidewalks and parking lots. I've mostly gotten used to the noise here, but not entirely. Last night the train honked it's horn, short little blasts on and on. Now tell me why the conductor would do that? Someone on the tracks?

Anyway, not to complain too much, because there are so many things that are ideal living in a small community where all the conveniences are close at hand. Really, I don't have to leave here if I don't want to. And now in Bellingham, our gas prices are over $4.00/gallon. I'm thinking that gardening is a very good idea. And so is my bicycle.

And now to my new thing, a garden store where I'll find as much seed as possible to offer you--unique things too--orange cucumbers, purple broccoli. It just seems fun to plant carrots that are more orange than usual. And did I tell you? that around here, PNW, that if you plant your carrots in a pot with fine netting over the top, the carrot boarer will be foiled. I'm trying it. I saw it on Cisco. He's a Seattle gardener. Pretty smart guy and way chipper.

Okay, still in bed. Gardening in my dreams. I'm up and at it, promise. Ciao!

Gloomy Morning

Well, I really am having trouble letting go of my almost-ex-husband. So what does that have to do with gardening? I'm not sure, but there's all that mint that has trouble letting go of the soil and water, all lush in the corner of my garden plot. It's so tenacious, the roots traveling underground, new stems coming up along the runners. In the woods around here, when a cedar tree falls, it becomes a nursery log and new trees sprout in it's composting trunk, so the new trees grow in a row. So sweet. As far as a fallen marriage goes, I guess new parts of me are being forced to grow along the fallen parts. Each part of me has to break down, turn to compost and then regrow something new. The part I'm working on now is letting someone else have him. Ooh, that bothers me. But everything is impermanent. The garden teaches me that. Plants have a short life cycle. Although I do have a Hoya that is 32 years old. I've carried it from one residence to another. Funny how things work out. Something that seems permanent, isn't.

So the garden rules summarized:

1. A plot cannot be left unattended for more that two weeks. (Oops!)

2. No weeds pulled and left in the garden.

3. Conserve water.

4. Rocks go in rock pile.

5. Weeds go in compost pile.

6. No pets and keep tabs on children.

7. Weed-free and looking neat please.

8. A plot not maintained for more than 30 days will be re-assigned.

9. Fencing within plot borders only.

Etc.

Here's the grandbaby. I'm feeling better now. Ciao!