Oh, good grief!

Fine, Universe. You win.

The end of my broccoli.

The person who cleans my house drove over the 4 broccoli seedlings I had left. I give up. Garden center broccoli it is.

GARDEN TRAGEDY

Remember I mentioned that I was growing broccoli and cabbage for a fall harvest? Well, my house is surrounded by woods, and sunlight is at a premium. I have to chase the sun to make sure my seedlings get enough energy to grow. In the afternoons, that best sun spot is on the driveway.

As I do every afternoon, I moved my babies from the porch to the driveway. My husband came back from work, and felt something weird under his car tires. It happened. Half my babies were crushed by a Jeep. Now, I don’t know if I mentioned this but I planted 10 small pots of each vegetable. From them, 8 of each made it to the next size pots. I thought that was enough since both plants grow huge.

But now… I only have 4 of each. And a couple look like runts. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

You can even see the tire tracks.

A photo of the perpetrator. Beware of him around your seedlings. Hmm, why does he look so happy?

Summer lunch…

A super-fresh Caprese salad with balsamic vinegar, courtesy of Tablecloths and Sporks Organic Farm (sounds big, huh? It’s just my two 4×8 plots in the community garden).

How fresh was it? The tomatoes were still warm from the sun.

Heirloom seeds and plants

This is cool. I’m glad Seed Savers is being featured. I haven’t ordered from them (yet!) since 2011 is my very first gardening year and I didn’t know much about starting seeds and using heirlooms. But, next year I will be a little more adventurous–I need more sun on my yard to support this hobby!

Heirlooms are cultivars that have been passed down from generations or are older than 50 years, and are open-pollinated (the actual definition varies by organization). Because they are not genetically modified or intensely hybridized, they are somewhat fragile and prone to diseases, which is why commercial growers stay away from them. Their shapes and colors are not “perfect” so grocery stores don’t carry them either. But that is part of their charm. They have so many different colors, shapes, and flavors, so it’s fun to grow them.

Amish paste tomatoes on the left, speckled Roman on the right.

I grew Black Zebra, Amish Paste, and Speckled Roman tomatoes (from here), and this fall I have cabbage and broccoli going (wish me luck). My Florida market eggplant gave me one tiny fruit, so that was a bust. I also got attacked by early blight and lost at least half my harvest, but that is another story. I can’t say that I will have a complete heirloom garden from now on (I grew this super-ultra-delicious grape tomato hybrid and will again), but definitely I will give non-mainstream plants a bigger chance.

Ripe speckled Roman tomatoes

Cilantro: yes or no?

Growing up in Mexico, cilantro was a common as salt. It wasn’t until recently that I’ve ran across people who just don’t like it, or tell me that it tastes like soap.

I ran across this article: Cilantro Haters, It’s Not Your Fault. Turns out that yes, cilantro’s aroma comes from aldehydes which are similar to the ones that come from soaps.

So my question is: cilantro, yes or no? Please answer here, and take a moment to like my Facebook page.

I grew veggies!

(Short version of my personal introduction to gardening. I will expand on some topics as I go along. Also, please excuse the photo quality. I have a very old iPhone.)

Last Spring, while reading the Roswell Recreation and Parks brochure, I found they had a community garden near my house. I was fortunate enough to get the last plot available. Not having grown food ever (I’m a proud city girl) I started researching how to go about it.

Well, I found a link to the Square Foot Gardening Foundation, and I liked their approach to intensive gardening. I am a very structured person, and I loved the grids and all the charts in their book, which I checked out from the Sandy Springs Library and then ordered it from Amazon because I wanted to have my own copy.

I started my seeds, and lo and behold, they sprouted!

I actually grew so many, I gave some extras to my friends. I transplanted my babies and bought some other plants at Home Depot and from Lazy Ox Farm (highly recommended). I had to take out most of the soil on my plot to replace it with vermiculite, peat moss and compost. It didn’t look like much at first, but boy, it grew (more pics later). I ate, gave away, and canned so much.

Right now it is July, and I’m starting to harvest, put the spent plants in the compost pile and starting my fall seedlings. I really hope I can do this for many more years.

All clay and weeds.

Would it grow in perfect squares?

My urban garden in May before it "exploded".