GREEN Part 2: Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

GREEN, Part 2: Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

 

 

It's been quite some time from when I started part 1 of this mini blog series, partially because I was a bit busy, but mainly because I haven't done that much.

 

In the spring, I had great expectations of coming home from a run or bike ride and working on the garden.  But then I always seemed to be behind on things or have something going on in the evening.  Plus, I really didn't know what to do after I planted the seeds.  

But, I (and Steve) have done a few things since May:

One:  I bought my organic seeds at Krieger's and did some planting!  I had to pick plants that only needed part sun, so I went with: kale, chives, parsley, and cilantro.  I also ended up buying some tomato seeds, but I don't know if that is going to grow as they really need full sun.

Two- Not knowing how often I needed to water the plants, I started to water them.  However, in the past month or so, we have had enough rain every week where I haven't had to worry about it.  (If I ever do become a gardener, I may invest in a rain barrel.)

Three- Once we has a few plants starting to sprout, we put the chicken wire around the garden box! Otherwise the deer would have gobbled everything up.  We still did this a bit late however, as a certain furry 4 legged, black, white, and grey creature with, lucky for her, and adorable face, decided to play in the garden box and scattering some of the seeds.


It's tiny, but there is something growing!

This required me taking yet another trip to Home Depot to buy more stakes.  (We only bought 1 at first, not really knowing what we needed it for.  As it turns out, we needed one for each side of the box- I should probably insert a "duh" here.)

Then came the fun part of cutting the chicken wire to wrap around the stakes...it was not that easy.  (I am determined to believe it was not the lack of strength in my hands, but a dull blade.) 

This is where I came to my dilemma.  I couldn't get the silly chicken wire to stay straight as I was trying to wrap it around the stakes, meaning it would crush the precious few sprouts we had growing.  So, I laid it down and waited for Steve to come home :)

Eventually, we got it done! Steve isn't exactly happy with it as it's not the nicest looking thing in the world, but after checking out other people's gardens and their fences, ours really isn't that bad.


Pacer checking out what we were doing outside without her...





 

After a few weeks of not doing much, I had some things growing. The problem was that I didn't know what was a plant and what was a weed, so I left it for another few weeks. 

(The big green thing in the corner is an organic mint plant...I totally should have bought all plants for my first time around.)


 

This leads me to step four- weeding.

 

I still really wasn't exactly sure what I was growing, but I had an idea at least of what were weeds at this point.  So I pulled those out, tried one plant that I was fairly sure wasn't a weed, found out it was cilantro and tasted pretty good, and dug out my note card that I had written earlier that told me what should be growing where.

 

I'm pretty sure at the far right end of the box I have some kale growing, though I think it should be bigger by now.  A few of the leaves looked like they had some bug damage, so I made a small spray of water with dish soap to spray on them.                                                                  Then I figured I might as well use up the leftover seeds in the packets I had to fill up some holes.  Whether they grow or not, I figured it wouldn't hurt as the seeds would be no good in a year.

 
 

And from here, I will continue hoping and praying that something grows and Steve and I didn't waste a ton of money on buying all the materials and organic dirt for a box. 

It's right under the window to my dream room, so it should be getting some good, positive energy! 

Hmmm...maybe I need to pick up my meditation practice more.... (it has definitely been lacking).



I guess we will see what happens in the next few weeks.  I'd really love some kale!



 Peace. Love. Grow.

-Rachel, the Green Thumb Wannabe




Extras:

It looks like the flowers in my shoes died...the smell must have been too much for them.

Pacer, on the lookout for squirrels and deer...I also gave her a bath after I was done gardening.  She promptly ran away in the middle of it rolled around in the dirt, and then inside the garage.  Eventually I got most of the soap off her.