Tag Archives: gardening

Gardening 2014

I’ve started a bit of gardening again. Previously, I’ve done kind of a lot of container gardening, but I’ve been pretty clear that it’s more for the joy I find in growing things than any sort of self-sufficiency. This is pretty good, because sometimes I only get three tiny tomatoes.

But I’ve taken to gardening on a larger scale. Sort of. I got a plot in a community garden near-ish my home. And then I promptly agreed to share it with a new friend, John. John promptly filled his half of the plot with tomatoes, peppers and basil.

My half of the plot promptly got a couple of mustard greens. And the sage cut back dramatically. But it still basically looks like this:

My friend Toni has sent me some seeds, as a gift.… Continue reading →

Making Compost

My life has suddenly become rather focused on compost in the last few days. I’ve been, as I’ve mentioned in the past, rather interested in food waste for awhile.

While my interest in compost has remained about at the level mentioned in the linked post, my compost solutions have improved. Sort of.

They’ve improved in that I have a couple of potential methods now to compost some of this stuff. I spoke in the above link about “a specific composting system” that Bill and I would acquire some two or three years ago. And we kept putting it off because we didn’t know what to do with the finished compost. I’d chat with folks, but no one needed it.

Well, serendipity struck. That system? It’s an electric, indoor composter.… Continue reading →

A little bit on gardening and self-sufficiency

Bill and I just renewed the lease on our apartment, so we’ll be staying in this house about another year. It’s already the longest I, personally, have stayed put in my adult life. By the time we leave, which we intend to do next year, it will feel as if we’ve lived in this home forever. In fact, it’ll have been a little less than three years.

The first year we lived here, we moved in the middle of the summer. Heck, we mentioned it briefly here on this little blog. Of course, August is entirely too late in the year to plant anything, so for our first summer here, we grew nothing.

Last year, I posted about our first little garden early in the year, and then basically nothing for the rest of the year.… Continue reading →

The Most Expensive Tomato by Weight

This is the second summer Bill and I have tried to grow a little garden on our balcony. Our first little garden was sparse and probably only resulted in 10 or 12 tomatoes. Our basil bolted quickly, and the chives overgrew everything. It was a mess, but it was a pretty, fun, green mess.

This year, things have been a bit better. I still operate with a strict policy of benign neglect toward my plants, as I told a friend yesterday. They get watered every other day, most of the time, which is amazing. They get coffee grounds as psuedo-mulch about once a week. And, to be honest, my plants all seem very happy and green and not messy. Sorta. We’ll ignore that two of my tomato plants seem to have decided to use the third for support.… Continue reading →

I’m very impatient.

Cover of Grow Great Grub by Gayla Trail

The other day, because he is fabulous and knows me very well, Bill pointed out a book to me that he had found and I had not. He knew when he pointed it out that we’d be buying it. He knew this because we had two reasons for desperately wanting a balcony or outdoor space of some sort in our last apartment search. We (he) wanted a grill and we (I) wanted to grow food.

I’ve had a container garden before, when I lived in Virginia, and it did surprisingly well. However, it was much more of an expensive hobby than anything else. I didn’t manage to save any tomatoes from the squirrels, though they left my bell peppers alone. I appreciate that, since it means I got to eat the whopping two that plant produced.… Continue reading →