It’s Saturday and time to garden

I begrudge the time spent indoors on a day like today

The gardening bug bit me

Question: How do you know your green thumb is turning from lime granita to grasshopper green?

Answer: When you start eyeing potted plants your neighbors put on the curb for the yard trash guy, and think, that’s some really good soil. I could use that.

Me, last Monday

This happened this past week, along with another gardening bonus: One day this week I walked my dog at lunch and came across my elderly neighbor raking good, brown dirt off one part of her lawn – onto the street. Just to leave it there, like trash! I hustled back to my house, dropped off the dog and took the wheelbarrow back to Miss Jane’s house to pick up some of that good dirt. It’s going into the base of my latest raised bed, to nourish my new plants. I haven’t yet gotten to the point of picking up dog poop to work into the garden, but if the price of fertilizer goes up any more, I just might. Fortunately, our local zoo sells “comPOOst” – produced by the rhinos, giraffes and zebras.

So now I’m a gardener. After years of doing nothing but sitting inside and reading books, and joking about Dad’s “Olympic-sized garden” in our backyard as a kid, I’ve become Park Seed’s newest favorite customer. I am worried I’ve taken on a lot, but all I have to do is look out and see the progress. I’ve got GARLIC shoots coming up. And something is blooming in one of my potato buckets – I really, really hope these potatoes work out!

That reminds me – I need to buy more buckets for when Park ships me my sweet potato seed potatoes. Wait – can you grow sweet potatoes in a bucket? I just took a five-minute break to look up videos and found, yes, you can. Whew… I am definitely running out of room in my raised beds. I still have to get my cukes in.

Wow – still looking at these sweet potato videos – I’m going to have wait five to six months for the sweet potatoes to grow so I can harvest them! Gardening teaches patience. Boy, is it addictive. Now I look up things like cold frames and greenhouses online. I’m comparing potting soils and fertilizers. Now I’m learning about building trellises – I’m going to have to guide these sweet potatoes in a bucket along a trellis. And I think I can cobble together a nice way to organize the sweet potato buckets. This is more work than I anticipated….

And yet I’m still watching these videos. I’m going to have to share some of these videos with you all. I love this guy – I’ve now watched three of his videos (when I should be out back working!) And this couple made an urban farm. Both of them are having a ball harvesting their sweet potatoes (be sure to watch for that.) I’ve bookmarked their video on tater candy for a way to use the little bitty potatoes.

I’m off to do a little more in the backyard. I now aspire to an urban farm. Poor Podrick may lose some of his roaming space…