Garden '09

The planting is complete for the garden this year. The furthest planter box hosts tomatoes: stilitz, stupice, gajo de something, husk cherry, and amish salad. The makeshift greenhouses made from the potting soil bags are covering basil seeds, lettuce seeds and the potato tubers. The front planter hosts pumpkin, lemon cucmber and watermelon (all seeds,) zucchini, ancho pepper, rio de oro pepper and the aji amarillo pepper. At some point some transplanting may be required. The three black containers at the front host herbs, beets (only teeny sprouts thus far) and a Sweet 100 (tomato.) So, I exploded from last year's single box to two boxes, three rectangular boxes (10-15 gallon,) and 5 pots (15 gallons.) I planted early, used better stuff, and am keeping my fingers crossed. I had to pull up the beet sprouts to empty and move the older planter box, so I'm a little worried they won't survive the stress.

Additional tips I learned from my class: (1) Always water in the early morning, you don't want to send roots into the cold night temperature wet, especially when they are young plants; (2) If you use black containers (as I did because they were super cheap) you can super heat the roots during those dog days of summer, so it is suggested you create a shade barrier on their south facing side; (3) plants need lots of food (duh!) and that was something I didn't seem to think was all that important last year. Ever had that brown spot on the end of your tomatoes? Its called blossom end rot and it forms when tomatoes don't have enough nutrients. The suggested combo was 4-6-4, balancing the right amount of nitrogen (for leaf growth,) phosphorus (for root growth,) and potassium (for flower growth or fruit - my notes are a little hazy.) Now, one class does not make me ANY sort of expert, but I thought I would pass that along. Oh, and another thing that I need to go out and do, is any seeds if planted directly in the soil (which I did quite hopefully) should be covered with some sort of "greenhouse" and stay out of direct sun. Oops.

I inherited this book that's sort of commical called Down to Earth Gardening Know-how for the '90s. I'm assuming not much has changed from the 90's till now, so that will serve as my simple reference guide in the mean time.

Book Recommendations

I haven't read much since the beginning of the school year, but here are some definite reads:

1. World Without End by Ken Follett (its the sequel to Pillars of the Earth, but need not to have read the first, I didn't)
2. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - brilliant!
3. Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson - this is young adult fiction, but beautifully written and a lot of great history of the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately its the first of a series/sequel and that sort of irritated me at the end, especially since I bought it in hardback. I will probably read it to my students in May.
4. Rumors of Peace by Ella Leffland - brilliant!


On my bookshelf for when I finish Rumors of Peace (about 2/3 through):
1. Deadwood by Pete Dexter - JE was interested in reading it, so I thought I might too.
2. Mudbound by Hillary Jordan - this was an NPR recommendation that I wrote down awhile ago.
3. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano - picked up at the book exchange back when, but I just haven't gotten into it yet. Any thoughts?

I'm also reading Cajas de carton (English version - The Circuit) by Francisco Jimenez as part of our school novels with the students. I will say, reading and understanding novels with my students this year has been amazing. We don't actually read novels anymore in school as a class - just anthologies of stories, sometimes they are excerpts from novels. I have three specific memories - actually four - of reading as a child: (1) reading Island of the Blue Dolphins with my mom, mostly she read it to me; (2) my fifth grade teacher reading The Chronicles of Narnia aloud to us; (3) reading Julie of the Wolves with my sixth grade class; and (4) reading Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. Many of my students are currently wrapped up in the Twilight series, others still read Harry Potter, and some The Lightening Thief series. The last one I found the most intriguing of the three, although it required quite an understanding of Greek/Roman mythology. Several people have told me they love the Twilight series just as much as my students, but I'm not there yet. I really think its a shame that we don't have core literature programs anymore, apparently they were deemed to not be effective means of teaching reading. Huh? Reading books is not a good way to get students to read - imagine that?!?

We've dumbed it all down, yet required such a breadth of material that students need to master by the end of each grade level, it really does boggle the mind. This summer I will be reading and trying to figure out how to apply Guiding Readers and Writers. Now that I have a better grasp as to what the students need to know and were they tend to be the weakest, I can better design my classroom to meet those needs.

Backyard Revolution

The more people I talk to, and based on a class I attended today, the more it seems the world is making an attempt to grow its own food - backyard style. My mom's been doing it for years. Apartment living doesn't exactly provide you with the means for growing your own vegetable garden. Last year was our first attempt at gardening in a small space outside our apartment. It was a shining beacon of life amid a very dark, dreary place that was our last apartment. We have since moved to an equal sized abode, but one with nearly ten times the amount of light. It really has made a world of difference in my general well being. We have a pseudo-yard that we have basically transformed into a little backyard sanctuary, complete with a patio, patio chairs, fire pit (yes, built by JE,) plants in beds (highly drought-tolerant for our dry CA climate,) and a pea gravel area to allow for adequate drainage. The side yard of our house finally got cleaned out and proves to have the most sunlight, ideal for veggie growing. Today I attended "Gardening in Containers" held at the Love Apple Farm. If you are new to gardening, have limited space, or just want to understand why your tomato plant didn't grow to its full 7-foot potential, this is the class for you. Plus, I left with potato tubers, a tomato plant, a zucchini, an ancho chile, various seeds, and some herb plants. All of which I added to with the purchase of worm castings, a worm box and an additional tomato plant to replace a cherry I gave as a gift. Now my two 15 cu feet boxes have exploded into the entire side yard with plans for two 15 gallon pots with potato tubers, 2-15 gallon pot with beans, another with cucumbers with the possibility of creating a vine teepee. Okay, so it got a little out of control. I'm waiting for JE to come home and say, "you bought a what?!?"

There was a man there who was, little by little, tearing up his yard to grow vegetables year round. He had taken work off to take the class. I think I might have too, if I didn't have Spring break this week. So this year's garden should be a vast improvement to last year. I'm pretty excited about it all.

Community Sponsored Agriculture

There is no sense keeping a blog if you don't post to it. People stop reading. If people read to begin with anyway. Not much of interest to report these days. Life continues at the same pace and in the same way. Exercise has been put aside as I seemed to be plagued with cold after allergies, after cough, after general malaise. Last week I started the Community Sponsored Agriculture. I had been meaning to try this awhile ago, but when its just one person, that's pretty silly. So I convinced a very meat-eating JE that we should try it. It actually didn't take much convincing because he likes vegetables a lot too. So far we've had whole roasted chicken with parsnips, turnips and baby carrots. Friday night was sauteed turnips and parsnips with a salad. The salad dressing was a mustard dill vinaigrette. It was a very tasty salad. Last night we had roast pork chops with bacon and greens. For desert I had strawberries and cream. JE's not a desert man. Weird. This morning for breakfast we had orach, marjoram, bacon and cheddar omelet. Best omelet I've had in a long time.

So, due to my illness of the last three weeks, I had to blow off the Pescadero Artichoke Half Marathon. That was disappointing, but there will be more. Today's activities include finding stores that will be open so I can get stuff for my planter boxes. Of the seven tomato plants I received from BT's bountiful seedlings, four will go in the ground, two did not survive and one I gave as a gift to a colleague who just lost her mother. I also have two pepper plants from the Master Gardener's pepper sale last weekend. About five of the 2 dozen beet seeds I planted sprouted, so I am hoping those will make it. In addition to planting, there is much yard clean up to do. I hear the boys down below loading stuff into the wheel barrels and guess I shouldn't hide for too much longer. Plus, if I help its the only way I get to spend time with the workaholic JE, who has worked 6 days for the last month and then does work in the yard on Sunday. Feeling neglected, who me?? Maybe just a little bit, but he knows it. Its good that he's working so hard and he certainly needs to save up the money in case work dries up, but its hard not to feel a little selfish and want to go play. I've worked hard all my life to be able to enjoy weekends and vacations, but that's not the way it works for now. Its actually kind of fun to do yard work and planting together, so I shouldn't complain. Hey, I could be with a guy who wants to sit in front of the TV and drink been all day and watch sports or play video games, so I'm pretty thankful that's not who he is.