I Have Sproutlings!

I never intended on becoming a gardener. That wasn't really in my plan. And then I visited my wonderful friend Ella in Madison. She showed me her vegetable garden, and I tasted a homegrown tomato for the very first time.

It rocked my world. I never knew that tomatoes can be, well, so juicy and sweet. Grocery store tomatoes just don't compare.

So when my boyfriend suggested that we try to grow vegetables the following spring, I was game. I bought some containers, filled them with soil, and had a lovely container garden full of tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, zucchini, and the strawberries that refused to say "uncle." With the exception of the zucchini, everything grew fine. Kind of funny, as supposedly anybody can grow zucchini. I'm trying again this year.

One year after my spontaneous addiction to gardening began, I have decided to embark upon a new challenge. I grew everything from starts last year. This is easy for a beginning gardener, as one does not have to worry about hardening off transplants. You stick the plant in the ground and it grows. But growing from starts limits you to the few varieties that you can find grown in nurseries and at the wonderful Seattle Tilth plant sale. And, as I learned from hungrily watching my neighbors multicolored tomatoes grow last summer, there are way more varieties out there than what you can buy commercially. I am now growing from seed.

In the backyard are containers full of kale plants and oregano -- somehow they survived the winter, probably because we didn't really have one in Seattle this year. For my birthday, my parents helped me build a raised bed in the side yard. It is a few feet away from a pear tree which produces some of the juiciest, sweetest pairs ever. And, in exchange for volunteering a few hours at the site, I have 100 ft.² in a brand-new p-patch. All in total, I have 132 ft.² of garden space, plus about 9 to 10 containers. Right now, my kale and oregano both think it's spring -- the kale is the tallest I've ever seen it! (If you have any good kale recipes, please let me know.)

My goal is to grow most of what I eat and to buy most of my fruits and vegetables from local farmers. It's good for the economy, within my grad student's budget, and good for my tummy, too. I grow my veggies organically, but I don't always buy organic. To me, it's more important to be local than organic. I always ask the farmer I'm buying from what s/he used on the plants. If it's a chemical, I say no way. But if s/he used cow or horse manure as fertilizer, that's fine by me.

About a week and a half ago, I planted peas, radishes, fava beans, lettuce, and chard. I've been trying not to check every day for sprouts, but I'm a little impatient. Each day, I pull off my floating row cover, look at my garden bed, and turn away with a sigh. No sproutlings yet. I've been checking my indoor seed starting kits too. And still nothing.

But today, when I pulled off the floating row cover, I discovered that my lettuce has sprouted! Two small little seedlings have pushed their way out of the soil to soak in the sunlight and thrive in my garden bed...until they become my dinner. I ran back inside to check my peat pellets. Sure enough, five days after planting them, little green shoots were reaching out of the pellets towards the grow lights clamped overhead! Hooray! Maybe I can grow from seed after all. Although, I went a little crazy planting...and, um, I may have way too many tomato plants if all of them grow into happy, hearty plants. We'll see.

I'll be keeping a blog this growing season as a way of keeping track of my garden, and so all of you can read about the trials and tribulations of being a spontaneous gardener. If you have tips and tricks, please let me know. (I strongly prefer organic/natural tips and tricks.) While I don't have any pictures today, I will be putting some up so you can visually follow my garden's progress, too.

Oh, and a quick warning -- if my syntax seems a bit funky, it's because I am dictating this blog using voice recognition software. It's a long story, but I have a pinched nerve in my elbow and tendonitis in both hands. So if I make any odd mistakes, that's why.

Enjoy following along. Please ask questions, make comments, and share recipes, too!
-- Anna

READY FOR HARVEST
Lacinato Kale
Oregano

OVERWINTERING
Walla Walla Sweet Onions

GROWING
No new varieties here!

JUST PLANTED (less than one month)
Champion radish (heirloom)
Mesclun blend lettuce
Freckles lettuce
Marconi red pepper (heirloom)
Oregon sugar pod pea
Rhubarb chard
Sugar Daddy snap pea
Broad Windsor fava beans
North Star sweet bell pepper
Carouby de Maussane snow pea
Sungold tomato
Celebrity tomato
Red, Yellow, and Pink Brandywine tomatoes (heirloom)
Yellow pear tomato (heirloom)
Rainbow heirloom mix tomatoes (heirloom)