Fertile Soil

I started my first large-scale garden this spring. It's not something that I'd ever had the band-width or space, really, to undertake. And here I am. It's July and I'm sitting in my growing jungle. I have eaten spinach that I grew from seed, although it all bolted in the heat wave we had in June. Tonight I pulled a ripe beet and a nearby carrot (just to see how long it was-- three inches, but I washed and ate it anyway).

I think I've been boring people in my regular journal about my garden. So I'm writing this new thing.

In March I moved in with my partner. Her second floor deck has no roof and gets full sun most of the day. I'd never really gardened before, although my mother does and my college roommate was a botanist. On Palm Sunday, visiting my mother, I had the urge. We were in the grocery store and seeds of a reputable brand (ferry morse) were on sale. So I bought:
Beets
Spinach
Dwarf Sunflowers
Heavenly Blue Morning Glories
Mint
Rosemary
Basil
Earth Gem Tomatoes
Sugar Baby Watermelon

At Home Depot, a week or so later, I bought:
Tigridia (bulbs)
Carrots
Garlic
Chinese Lanterns
Celestial Mix Morning Glories

A few weeks later, visiting my partner's mother in Maine-- I began chatting with her neighbor and she mentioned heirloom seeds, something I'd known about but forgotten. I went online when I returned home to SeedSavers.org and I bought:
Grandpa Ott's Morning Glories
White Cypress (also in the Ipomoea Family)
Moonflowers (another Ipomoea)
Broccoli
Scarlet Magic Tassel
Calendula
Starfire Signet Marigolds
Black Velvet Nasturtium

And since then over the weeks and from various sources I acquired the following, mostly as plants):
Violas (X-Mas tree store, they looked sad)
Heron's Bill
Dahlia (both from Ricky's Flower Market)
Lavender (I think this may have been from Mahoney's Garden Center)
Tea Rose (Shaw's)
Balloon Flower (seeds from Shaw's)
Rosemary (from the farmers' market, only one of my seeds germinated and then died spectacularly)
Lemon Balm (a friend gave it to me before my mint had taken thinking that it was mint, but it was not)
Lantana
Portulaca (both Mahoney's Garden Center)
Petunias in Red and White (from a wedding)
Impatiens (from a wedding)
Tiger Lilies (from Home Depot)
Red Flax
Titan Sunflowers (both from Gardener's Supply as Seed)
Climbing Golden Showers roses (from the Christmas Tree Store, because the name is funny)

After a few weeks of that, my partner built me a raised bed in the back "yard" (which is paved over) where I put some more basil plants, taragon, dill, a butternut squash, and a pumpkin. This was Sunday.

Most seeds went directly outside on May 1st, although the watermelon went in on June 21st and the Titan Sunflowers and Red Flax, which were purchased last went in on June 30th.

Progress-wise, most things came up as expected. The Heavenly Blue Morning Glory sprouted a little late. The Moonflowers and Cypress didn't come up for a very long time-- even though I'd nicked and soaked them. I reseeded both containers twice. Once after 4 weeks with no sprouts and once after three more weeks with no sprouts. About two weeks after that, EVERYTHING I'd planted came up. So the Cypress is a crazy mess, but I'm letting it go. The moonflowers are pretty spread out, but rather than 2 vines per pot, I have 4-6 per. They're pretty heatlhy looking as yet, but I will have no hesitation in thinning them as needed.

There are two pots of Calendula-- one looks great and the other looks like hell, not sure why.

There are 3 types of Morning Glory. The Grandpa Otts have been blooming for weeks and are just starting to make seed pods, which I'm looking forward to collecting. The Celestial Mix looks great (it's 10-12 feet tall) but hasn't flowered yet. The Heavenly Blue is just starting to get going...the average vine is about 2 feet long right now.

I could talk about this stuff forever, but I think I'll make a picture post before I get too much wordier.

Suffice to say that the start-up was expensive, but that during the stress of my finals, crawling around on my hands and knees and just noticing the green things and all of their minute little changes, made me so happy, that it was worth it.