A Somewhat Green Thumb

When our landlord told me I could rip the junk out of our back planter and use it to garden I was over the moon. I had big plans for a flower and veggie garden. I figured that since I couldn't afford to purchase myself bouquets of flowers or organic vegetables I would have to grow some myself. Oh, how foolish I was!

About half of my garden is doing well. The summer flowers I picked up and planted are a total bust. I planted from seed, and then had some trouble figuring out what was real and what was weeds, so I decided to let everything grow. This turned out to be not the best plan. Also, now that the tress have leaves the area I planted gets almost no sun, and that isn't helping matters. I may or may not see any flowers, but I will have to wait until the end of August to know either way, and I won't even be in town then to enjoy them because my little brother is getting married!

My vegetable garden is another matter. The past two weeks I have harvested green beans, peas, spinach, a banana pepper and Tommy harvested some lettuce (without permission). The spinach did not grow as well as I hoped, but the lettuce is growing like crazy. The green beans are also flourishing, while the peas are only doing so-so, I think some of the plants have root rot because the drainage isn't great. My large plants seem to be doing well. I have a number of green tomatoes and little tiny bell peppers. I also have some green onions, chives, and a mint plant that are growing nicely. The only thing I planted that was awful were carrots. I think maybe four grew from the entire packet. The irony is that I only picked up carrots because I remembered them being really easy to grow (from the last time I gardened when I was eight or nine). The biggest problem in my garden was the presence of a colony of carpenter ants that ate the heck out of my green beans early on, but are now leaving them alone. Said carpenter ants forced me to resort to a mild pesticide. It was either garden with chemicals or have no garden, and I chose the garden. So much for growing my own organic vegetables...

Come dinner preparation time it has been really nice to step just outside the kitchen door and pick some of the things I need. Besides eating the green beans and peas steamed, I have used the spinach in a pizza, the pepper and green onions for tacos, lettuce for sandwiches, and the mint for homemade mint chocolate chip ice-cream. The harvest may be small, but it sure is tasty!