Garden Planted!

“Eating is an agricultural act,” as Wendell Berry famously said. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world—and what is to become of it.  To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life afford quite as much satisfaction. By comparison, the pleasures of eating industrially, which is to say eating in ignorance, are fleeting. Many people today seem perfectly content eating at the end of an industrial food chain, without a thought in the world."

Michael Pollan

Thanks to some wonderful weather this week we have almost all of our garden planted.  Here's what we have in the raised bed so far:

Transplants:

• Tomatos (6 different varieties!)
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Swiss Chard
• Zucchini
• Summer Squash
• Cucumber
• Watermelon
• Peppers (4 different varieties)

Seeds:

• Beets
• Carrots
• Pole Beans
• Sun Flowers

We are also trying some potatoes.

Pre-vacation seedlings

Post vacation seedlings

I planted some tomato seeds right before we left for a week long vacation.  I needed a way to have them stay watered while we were gone, so I came up with this (my Mom gave me the idea).  Old strips of towel wicked water up into the soil.  Perfect!

When we returned the seedlings looked great.  Unfortunately I have major problems with trying to transplant seedlings and ended up killing them all.  I think I should have waited until the first true leaves had emerged and done a better job hardening them.  Oh-well, luckily there is no shortage of transplants available at the nurseries right now!

I ended up buying six different varieties, a few from the Fitchburg Farmer's Market, Jung's, and Johannsen's.  I found some fun heirloom varieties that I'm excited to try.  Caya really liked the yellow pear  cherry tomatoes that we had last year, so we bought one of those again.

Fortunately, I have the luxury of not having to rely on my gardening skills to feed our family and can experiment with whatever vegetables and varieties sound interesting or look pretty.  Yet, I am a huge supporter of preserving biodiversity (its what I studied in grad school!).  The main principle of conservation biology is to conserve all biological units, from genes to ecosystems.  The way I try to incorporate this principle into my gardening is by buying and growing heirloom seeds/plants in my vegetable garden and native plants in my landscaping.  Seed Savers Exchange is a really great organization whose mission is to collect rare heirloom varieties and distribute them to gardeners.  There is a stand at the Hilldale Farmer's Market that sells plants from Seed Savers Exchange.

Caya sampling the lettuce

The lettuce in our containers is doing great, and Caya has really enjoyed being able to eat the leaves.  I've also caught her eating hosta leaves, so we are still working on what is and is not edible!  Kili is still eating dirt, mulch, and sand...she is also still working on what is and is not edible (or I just stick in her binkie).

I absolutely love being able to run out to the deck and grab a few leaves of lettuce to make a salad for dinner.  Last week I picked a bag full of leaves, put one moist paper towel in and they kept in the fridge really well.

Today I was looking forward to planting the rest of our seeds in the garden.  It started off well, Caya happily putting seeds into the holes I had dug, but then Kili (who had not taken a morning nap and was getting crabby) started climbing into the garden right where we had planted the beet seeds.  After removing her from the garden, for the forth or fifth time, and trying to get her to play in the sandbox I noticed that Caya was now digging up a bunch of dirt, from where we just planted carrot seeds, and covering the swiss chard leaves.  Seriously?!  By 11:15 both kids were in tears and it was definitely time for lunch!  After regrouping, Caya and I did finish planting her sunflowers.

I keep trying to be patient and remind myself that this is a project I am doing with my kids, but honestly the garden is also my retreat from parenting, and I would actually like to grow some veggies this summer.  So, its been a balancing act between trying to let them be involved, while having realistic expectations of how much they can help, and not letting them sabotage my gardening efforts.  Some days I am perfectly content to work in the garden by myself while they play together on the slides (because, yes they have actually been playing together!).  My hope is that gardening will become a summer norm for them throughout their childhood and they will have (mostly) fond memories :).

Side note - while I'm not growing asparagus myself, I am so excited that it is asparagus season.  Ian and I have a rule that we only eat local asparagus (okay, obviously that's my rule, but we both follow it because I generally do the grocery shopping), but we eat it like crazy (grilled, steamed, in salads) for the 4 or 5 weeks that its around.  Asparagus is a perennial crop and takes a few years to start producing spears, so once we have settled into our post-residency house I would love to try growing it.  I love these quotes from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:

“(on asparagus) Europeans of the Renaissance swore by it as an aphrodisiac, and the church banned it from nunneries.” 


“Respecting the dignity of a spectacular food means enjoying it at its best. Europeans celebrate the short season of abundant asparagus as a form of holiday. In the Netherlands the first cutting coincides with Father's Day, on which restaurants may feature all-asparagus menus and hand out neckties decorated with asparagus spears.”