Growing things

Spring fever has officially hit! We're growing things like crazy here at Melvin HQ. We have two small gardens going. One at my place of employment and one at home. Perhaps you're puzzled by the idea of growing things at one's place of employment, but the super fabulous owners of Schacht Spindle Co., Barry and Jane, decided to turn a strip of land previously covered in grass into a series of employee garden plots. They painted little radishes on the edge of the curb surrounding the land to demarcate plots, and each spring employees are given the option of signing up for a plot. There are two rules. You have to weed your plot, and you have to garden organically. They provide us with compost, garden tools, and irrigation. Water is conserved by limiting the watering times to early and late in the day when the sun is a bit less apt to evaporate the water intended to irrigate your plants. I'm working for a couple of very cool people.

So far we have peas, lettuce, spinach and stir fry mix all starting to grow. The garlic and shallots from last fall are up and doing well, and with a stretch of 70+ degree days on the horizon, I suspect there will be more to report.


We're sharing the apartment with lots of little seedlings: tomatoes of various sorts (including plants from the seeds I saved last fall), peppers of various colors, beets, lettuce, thyme, dill, basil and lavender. April 20th marks the date when I'll plant a few more things in the ground, with Mother's Day being our generally recognized last frost date after which we can really go crazy.


Last night the first of the tomatoes were transplanted. We're growing black krim, red zebra, a mystery heirloom and some cherry tomatoes. After a long stretch of saving our yogurt containers, all that was needed was my trusty dusty awl and a bit of soil, and we had the perfect first step transplant containers.


Next step will be transplanting them into poo pots (dried, compressed cow manure) which can be planted directly into the ground when ready.

We also spent a good deal of time last weekend giving the worm bin a once over. The net result was happier worms and a nice little bucket of castings to use in the garden. There will be lots more to report in the very near future. Yay spring!