The Garden Hoe: April 2012

                                                     The bent spade and new gloves.

        Let me tell you there is nothing like a garden to humble you. I went out last weekend to do a little weeding. I dressed up in my new pink, jaunty Crocs and my matching pink, zebra print gardening gloves, spade in hand and feeling uber-gardeny and very cute I entered the garden. About an hour later, I left the garden a sweaty pit-stained mess, panting, carrying my now bent spade and my pride back into the house. Oh yeah, and I hurt my back.
     How did I hurt my back? It was the weeds that did it. I started off slowly, pulling the small ones. Feeling confident, I began to tackle those deep rooted dandelions. You know the ones with the never ending roots. You keep digging and digging and never really find the end of them. Well I kept digging and pulling and they were starting to wear me down. I almost called it a day until an image of The Borg came to my mind. Who are The Borg? Are you serious? They are my favorite cybernetic collective from the best, yes I said it, Star Trek series ever.....Voyager. And also Star trek next generation. Now The Borg are inspirational in many ways, but what really struck me in the garden was their unbelievable ability to never give up. Even when Captain Janeway had their backs were up against the wall, their numbers dwindling did The Borg ever give up. Noooo! They kept assimilating. Well I drew strength from their positive attitude. I told those weeds," Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated." And then I hurt my back.

                                                    The Borg

        Growing up on one of the busiest streets in a city I have always longed for the exact opposite. Instead of waking up to ambulance sirens and gas fumes, I wanted roosters and rolling green pastures. I would fantasize about milking cows, riding horses and picking apples. My childhood dreams extending into my university days, reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles I found myself envying her life as a milk maid. I swore when I finished school I would buy a huge farm and have fresh eggs every morning, eat my lunch straight out of the garden and sit on my porch in the cool evenings watching the fire flies after a hard days work with my handsome (often shirtless) field hand Antonio.(what? it gets hot!) But I digress. I am now finished my school, married( not to Antonio) with a son and guess where I live...on a busy street in a city.
   So here I am with a small backyard and my eternal, nagging, desire for farm life. Although I had dabbled in gardening before, five days ago I came across a magazine that caught my attention. Urban Gardening it said, with the big ripe tomatoes taunting me on the cover. I quickly bought it. After reading it cover to cover I was inspired but also intimidated by all the sowing instructions, hardening off, making your own organic fertilizer (seriously?), bug fighting and what not. Can't you just put the seed in a pot and give it water and then put it in the garden? I decided to find out. I also decided to blog about it so that next year I can hopefully do it better as I am sure I will make many mistakes.
         So here is what I have done so far. I have purchased seeds that will grow in my area. What growing area am I in? I have no clue. I live in Nova Scotia. I know there are such things as growing areas. I just don't know what mine is. Basically I figured if the seed store is selling the seeds, chances are they will grow here. Smart huh? So here is what seeds I have bought : White Russian Kale (no idea what this is) Kale, crazy red and white ringed beets (I thought they were pretty), rainbow swiss chard ( again very pretty) , basil, cilantro (yum) buttercrunch lettuce (again never heard of it) the proud romaine lettuce (I love Caesar salad) arugula, watercress and beans. I think I might of got a little too excited buying seeds as my garden is tiny and I am not sure how big these grow. I also bought an indoor seed starting container that has a plastic dome. I planted the seeds 3 days ago. When I say I planted the seeds, I mean I put all of the seeds in the packet into one or two compartments. I thought some might not come up. Like when they plant extra embryos inside a women in case some don't take. I should have learned from Octomom. This was major mistake number 1. They have already sprouted 100's of plants. It is a little out of control and I am not sure what to do know as it is still too cold to put them outdoors. But I am just going to think on it until it is a lot out of control, which I am guessing might be in about 5 days time. Thanks for reading! Please feel free to give me advice!! And I will see you in about five days time!

                                                        Here is my seed starting kit. Kind of lame.