The Plot Thickens

Happy Anniversary, Little Garden!

Yesterday, Halloween, was the one-year anniversary for our community garden plot. Last year, I struggled alone in 100+ degree weather to clear our plot of weeds, armed only with a pitchfork and my iPod.

This year, we both dropped by around 4:30 p.m., after returning from a 10-day fall foliage trip to the east coast.  The weather was breezy, crisp, 65 degrees.  We plucked a few weeds and took a quick inventory of the activity that happened while were away: bean plants got bigger; our 5-foot tomato fell over. It’s fine; we righted it, but it clearly needs something bigger than your average tomato cage to help support it. (I may have to buy or build a trellis.)

We didn’t take any pictures, but we did grab a harvest:  a grocery sack full of giant sorrel leaves, New Zealand spinach (the wild, untended patch is getting bigger and still tastes good), Swiss chard, and basil. The goodies we took out of our garden last night were equivalent to at least $10-$15 worth of farmers market produce, and about the same quality.

I’d say that’s a pretty good anniversary celebration. In a half hour we reaped enough food to justify what we paid for our seed packets.

A few miscellaneous notes and goals for our gardening ventures…

1.  Baker Creek

While on vacation, we picked up some weird, exotic heirloom tomato, mini-melon and arugula seeds from Baker Creek Seeds, the company that recently bought my hometown seed company, Comstock & Ferre.

Comstock’s was a big part of my life growing up. It’s a few blocks from my mom’s house, and a block from the plant nursery where I worked as a teen. I’ve walked, run and biked past it countless times in my youth. It’s the place where my dad’s mother bought the Mr. Lincoln Rose she admired and painted throughout her life. And it was a major player in my town’s (in all of New England’s) agricultural history. 

I’m super excited Comstock is going back into business selling organic heirloom seeds, and as a history buff, the fact that they’ll be carrying old varieties from the 1800s is just… too cool for words.  I’m totally, ridiculously stoked for the day Baker Creek resurrects my hometown’s famous Wethersfield Red Onion—the crop that drove Wethersfield’s economy in the 1700s.  (They’ve promised this in print, in The Hartford Courant.)

2.  Pepper Killer

Something is still drilling holes in our bell peppers. We need to concoct an organic anti-pest spray, ASAP.

3. Cornholio

The fact that I’m making a Beavis & Butthead reference on a gardening blog both dates me and, I hope, makes me kind of punk.

We have an imminent corn issue. Our new stalk of corn is already about 2.5’ tall, which means we need to defend against whatever insect or fungus killed it this summer.  Since we never saw the scourge ourselves (our friends were looking after the garden in our absence), it’s hard to say what we’re fighting.  So it’s time to research. Cue the boring Googling-in-chair montage.

4. Box #4

We need to build a fourth square foot gardening box to accommodate our new seeds. If I get my act together, I’ll document the process in a little more detail so others can benefit.

More gardening goodness later this week, with photos.

Happy Belated Halloween, and don’t forget to vote.

—Kristen