Gardening And The Circle Of Life
Nongardeners often tell me that “Gardening must be SO relaxing.”
It can be relaxing.
It can also be extremely stressful.
Because plants, like any living thing, are part of the circle of life. They are born. They live.
They die.
At all different stages.
Some seeds don’t germinate. (I sow extra for this reason.) They die or have died before they sprout.
Some seedlings don’t make it past the first week (or the first month or…). You, as their gardener, could be doing everything right. And they will still die. They simply aren’t viable plants.
Some seedlings die after they’ve been transplanted into the garden. They don’t have the strength to deal with the outside elements.
Or they are eaten by slugs. Or they are attacked by flea beetles. Or hail takes them out. Or…or…or…
In the places where we have winter, almost all of our beloved outside plants die after that first hard frost.
Death is part of gardening. It isn’t a happy part. But it is an unavoidable part.
I mourn the death for a day. Then I plant another seed or transplant another seedling, filling the gap, giving that plant a chance at life.
And the circle of life continues.
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Gardening – Perennials And Compost
I’m very much a lazy gardener. (grins) So the Dear Wonderful Hubby and I plant a couple more perennial vegetables or fruits/berries every year.
One of the (many) benefits of perennials is
they don’t need as much compost or fertilizer.
Perennials usually have deep roots. They can draw up nutrients and minerals from deep within the ground…like trees do.
And they aren’t growing from nothing every year. Even if the vegetation dies back over a snowy cold winter, the root system remains.
We can save our precious compost for annual vegetables or newly planted perennials.
(smiles)
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Gardening – Decreasing The Need To Water A Garden
Water is one of the most precious resources on Earth. We, humans, are mostly water. All life on this planet needs water to survive.
Our plants need water also.
But there are ways to decrease the need to water our plants.
Organic matter in or on the soil is one of the best ways. Adding 1% more organic matter will increase water retention by 1%. Less water runs off and you need to water less often.
Organic matter, used as mulch, slows evaporation of this water. It also cools the soil.
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I use leaves as mulch. And we stack leaves knee-high on garden beds in Fall/Autumn to break down over the winter. This is easy peasy to do. Leaves are plentiful. And it is no financial cost. Leaves are everywhere. (smiles)
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Gardening – Lovage – A Possible New Perennial
Every year, the Dear Wonderful Hubby and I strive to add one perennial to our gardens.
Last year, it was mint (in containers that we overwinter outside).
This year, it is lovage.
This is a new-to-me herb.
It supposedly tastes like celery, which intrigues me as we use a lot of celery in soups and celery can be challenging to find and expensive to buy in our portion of the universe.
It is also supposedly okay with the cold, is rodent resistant (hopefully this includes squirrels), and once established, it doesn’t require a lot of water or care.
All these things appealed to me. I’m SUCH a lazy gardener. (grins)
Have you ever grown lovage?
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Garden Layouts Aren’t Set In Stone
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I are investing in quite a few new-to-us perennials this season.
Perennials need a semi-permanent place in the garden (they CAN be moved but it sets back their growth and is a pain in the a$$ to do). Which means we have to rearrange our rather small backyard.
We’re moving the leaf mold cages to the side of the house that gets very little sun and nothing much grows there. This won’t hurt the leaf mold production and it will free up those sunnier spaces for growing vegetables.
(smiles)
Garden layouts aren’t set in stone, my friends.
Well, unless you literally set them in stone. And even those can be changed if you’re very strong and/or have a sledge hammer.
(grins)
Change them when your requirements change.
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Gardening Self-Sufficiency And Time
(This is a stock photo. Our water storage system isn’t as pretty. – grins)
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I have a goal to be self-sufficient with our gardening.
Eventually.
If there’s ever a time when we can’t buy or otherwise obtain soil, fertilizer, water, containers and other gardening necessities from others, we want to still be able to grow vegetables and berries.
I hope that day never comes but we’re preparing for it. Just in case.
This preparation takes time. And resources. And expertise.
It isn’t an overnight, install it and be done process.
Making leaf mold, for example, takes at the minimum two years.
My first attempt was a disaster. I didn’t add enough water. The leaves didn’t break down.
I’m trying again and that will take at least another two years.
Putting together a rain water retention system, as another example, takes expertise and money. We’re building this system over time, adding rain barrels and storage containers to it every year.
Building a base of perennial vegetables and berries involves a GREAT deal of learning and babying the plants those first few years and money to buy the seeds/starts. I find we can only add a couple perennials every year to our garden successfully.
Self-sufficiency with gardening isn’t an easy overnight type of thing.
But then gardening isn’t an easy overnight type of thing.
(grins)
We can do this!
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Aerogarden – Week 6
It is week 6 of having the Aerogarden, the mini grow station, and the herbs that germinated are looking great. This includes the Basil I seeded to replace the Thyme that didn’t germinate (and that Aerogarden, keeping their germination guarantee, reimbursed us for).
We are lightly harvesting everything except for the Parsley and the Genovese Basil. Those plants aren’t yet large enough to take leaves from.
The Dear Wonderful Hubby, especially, is loving having a little bit of fresh herbs with each meal.
He was surprised how much he likes the Dill. Previously, he’d only had store-bought fresh Dill and the dried stuff and that doesn’t compare to Dill picked right from a plant.
(smiles)
The Aerogarden is, IMHO, a success!
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Aerogarden – Week 5
We now have seedlings in all 6 of the Aerogarden’s (the mini grow station’s) pods!
Woot!
The Thyme didn’t germinate. Aerogarden kept their germination guarantee and reimbursed us for that. I quickly popped in a couple Genovese Basil seeds and they germinated super quickly.
We’ve harvested some Dill and this past week, we did our first harvest of the Thai Basil. And everything seems to be growing strong.
We’re very pleased with the Aerogarden. It is super easy to grow in and it is nice to have fresh herbs literally on our kitchen table.
(smiles)
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Aerogarden – Week 4
This is week 4 of using the Aerogarden, the mini-grow station the Dear Wonderful Hubby and I received as a gift.
Five of the pods have seen germination. One of the pods (the Thyme) didn’t have any activity.
Aerogarden guarantees germination. The Dear Wonderful Hubby called their helpline and they gave us a refund for that pod.
There were some questions (as they are trying to fix problems and stop that from happening to other growers in the future) but the process was easy peasy.
Aerogarden truly does stand behind their guarantee.
Some of the pods had multiple germinations.
The Thai Basil, for example, had SIX seeds germinate. That is way too much for one little pod to handle. So I pulled out three of the seedlings and transplanted them in their own more traditional dirt-filled containers. And all three of the seedlings survived this rather traumatic experience.
(smiles)
The Dear Wonderful Hubby (the fresh herb lover) should have a lot of Thai Basil in the future.
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Aerogarden – Week 3
It is week 3 of having the Aerogarden, the mini grow station.
The dill is growing like…well…dill. When it grows, it REALLY grows, doesn’t it? And it is looking like dill with the real leaves more expected of the plant.
The Thai Basil is looking strong. FIVE seeds sprouted. I’m waiting for it to get a little bit bigger. Then I will thin the plants and try to root the seedlings that weren’t chosen. That might or might not work but it is worth a try.
The mint has finally broken through the sticker level. Mint grows slowly.
And I see the Genovese Basil has finally germinated. It is barely visible when I peer into the hole in the sticker but it lives!
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