Dirty and Fun

A couple of years ago, I got bitten by the springtime-gotta-grow-things bug.

In retrospect, I'm pretty sure most of my symptoms were actually less about spring and more about the fact that I was pregnant and crazy.

At any rate, I woke up one day and decided that would be the perfect day to go to the store, buy a bunch of seeds and dirt, and ~grow things~! I was certain that this was going to be a smashing success. Failure was not an option. It smelled earthy and warm outside and, if anything, it was going to be a challenge to keep all of these lush growing things contained...right?

Not so much.

Turns out, I'm remarkably bad at growing things in pots. I have a short attention span, we live in the desert, and I have zero experience keeping anything but kids and pets alive (and they bitch at me when they're hungry or thirsty, so it's sort of like cheating).

Even though it shouldn't have been a big surprise to anybody that was sort of paying attention, I was shocked and devastated when I had pots full of cracked dirt and mummified tomato plants a couple of weeks later.

The following year, I decided to forgo vegetables in pots and try out some flowers in the front flower bed. My rationale here was (even if I managed to kill every single plant that I put in there) anything I did was going to be an improvement over the pre-existing hot mess that housing had planted.

Amazingly, this went pretty well. I didn't have a ton of money to sink into it, so I only bought a few plants, but several of my friends moved away and donated their flowers to my hand-me-down garden. I kept pretty much everything alive until winter hit and it all (presumably) went to sleep. I guess the true test will be in the coming months, when things do -- or do not -- come poking out of the ground. (Though my irises already have some new spikes, so I'm jumping the gun and calling it good.)

Pics, or it never happened.

 


At any rate, I'm feeling cocky and wanting to try the vegetables again. I've been reading as much as I can about it, so I feel significantly more prepared. (Thank you, Pinterest.) I have a game plan beyond "dirt + seeds = MAGIC!". The plan involves home-made planter boxes with water reservoirs at the bottom, using a Gregorian calendar to guide when I plant seeds (as opposed to whim and hCG), and "worm towers". I'm really excited about those worm towers -- they're like mini compost heaps in each bin.

Tonight I planted the first of the seeds -- tomatoes, peppers, and basil. In about a month, I'll sow the summer squash and cucumbers. When I move it all out to the planter boxes, I'll sow dill straight into the box. Oh, and I'm leaving one empty so I can add strawberry plants when they start selling them at Lowe's.

Hopefully I'll be able to update this blog with all kinds of amazing, green progress.