Sunday, April 1, 2012

2012: The Garden Update!!

Spring came early to Kansas this year, very, very early. In a couple of months, I have a feeling that we'll be less delighted about this, but the winter was dreary, warmish, generally indeterminate but certainly no fun. So we love the budding trees. AND I was able to get my garden started several weeks ahead of the projected dates!


Since the political news is STILL universally horrifying (example: Kansas is in the process of passing a bill that legalizes discrimination against various groups of people for purposes of housing, employment, etc., as long as you have a religious reason for discriminating. Jesus must be so proud.) I am planning to spend the next six months firmly focused on the beauty of birth and rebirth in my garden.


The lettuce that I planted almost a month ago is ready for its first harvesting! Additionally, some purple lettuce that I didn't plant has sprouted and will also go into our salad tonight. See, last year I planted some purple lettuce that didn't do well at all, and I let it go to seed. But those seeds took root and didn't die thanks to the mild winter, so a couple of them sprang up unsummoned.  This means there are three varieties of lettuce and a few kale plants preparing delicious greens for us.


Also, I have a couple of dozen sprouted spinach plants.  I need to thin them.  But pulling up baby plants is so hard! They are so cute!  Still, it's fun to come home from work and check on their progress every day.


Onions and garlic are in the ground; I have to wait quite a while to check on them.  They are some of my experimental plants this year.  I don't know how they'll turn out, but they're very inexpensive to try out.  I planted orange, white, and scarlet carrots, too, in the root veggies category, and just this morning their first little feathery leaves popped out of the ground.


Mint, oregano, sage, and thyme are already producing voluminous amounts of fresh herbs.  I have started brewing up fresh mint tea (boil mint leaves, add some sugar, lemon juice, and orange juice concentrate, and pour it over ice) So this year's garden season promises to stretch eight or nine months! I have sixteen different varieties of veggies and herbs in the ground so far, and intend to diversify a lot in the upcoming months.  I also intend to freeze or can a lot more, and make good use out of everything my plots produce.  Since any positive revolutions appear hard to come by at present, viva la garden!  Grow green and prosper.


PS For some reason my images aren't posting today, so I'll put some garden pics up on Twitter.