Vegetable plot guaranteed to spice up your life

Tag : vegetable
Our children are successfully settled in life and it is interestinghow much they are recreating their childhood experiences at Mile 15East End Road. They both have gardens. And neither have goats.Doesn't that say it all?
Darren, the father of 3-year-old Cecilia and 12-day-old Luca, andhis wife, Erica, have a vegetable garden that could come off thepages of Beatrix Potter's books. Mr. McGregor it is. All square,neat as a pin, and fenced in. Cute as can be.
But the advent of these children brings home the need to grow asmuch of our own food as possible. I know, here we are at latitude59 and a half degrees north, doesn't seem very promising does it?
But we (you) need to make the effort. The weather has been lessthan ideal, but not impossible. The vegetables are loving itactually. OK, not the pumpkins. But if we plant what wants to growin the cool, wet weather, we are bound for glory. There is nothingthat can surpass fresh vegetables from your own garden.
If you have a garden this year and gave up because of the weather,you need to go take a good look at it. Mine has exploded this pastweek. This rain has been wonderful. We can water from a hoseforever and a day and the effect is no where as dynamic as rain.
Usually I shop the edges of a grocery store. I have a standard listevery week, boring but it gets the job done. I usually need Palmerpotatoes because I cannot store my own past December, same withonions. No more goats means I need dairy products. No more chickensmeans I need eggs. Through the check-out line and home, all inabout 20 minutes.
But we went to the movies and the aroma of popcorn was a sirencall. I needed popcorn. Once we got home I went straight to thepopcorn container: empty. How could this be? This is one of themany items I buy in bulk. Looked in the pantry. None to found.
It is now 9:30 p.m. and I am not to be denied. John and I get backinto the car and head to the store. I have to read the overheadsigns because I have no idea where the popcorn is.
People: I was dumbfounded by what I found in the popcorn section.Boxes and boxes of every flavor imaginable of microwave popcorn. Iwas stunned. On the very bottom shelf, on the left, was a littlebag of yellow popcorn. Forlorn. Dusty. I bought it out of pity. AndI needed popcorn, now.
Are you following my drift? Be happy with just plain old popcorn,popped on the burner in a pan with a lid. No magic. Simple. Cheap.Healthy. Good grief. What are you thinking?
Then I see a prominent advertisement in the Anchorage Daily Newsthat gave me pause: University of Alaska Anchorage offers a Masterof Science in Global Supply Chain Management.
This means garlic from China, butter from Ireland, cheese fromFrance, everything from Mexico. Yikes!
I am guilty. I do not ever want to give up Belgian bittersweetchocolate.
But this country produces really wonderful food when it puts itsmind to it and not politics. We, as just ordinary people here inthe Far North, need to grow at least some of our own food while westill have the choice. While we still can get seeds sent to us.
The array of vegetables that we can successfully grow is wide. Allof the greens, cole crops, root crops, artichokes, strawberries andraspberries.
If you are a young family, think about the quality of food that youare feeding your children. If microwave popcorn is on your grocerylist, think again.
Get back out to your garden. The weeds have gone wild. There arethose of you who would rather not ever pull a weed. Well, don't.But the point is to let sunlight and air reach the plants that willoffer you the most benefit. The manure and compost that you appliedto the soil is being wasted on weeds. Let the food go to the food.It really is obvious.
Now, get after the weeds. Stinging nettles thrive on my plot. Ifinally bought leather gloves that come up to my elbows. They arefor managing roses but the bonus is the protection they offer fromnettles. They have been a worthwhile purchase. So, if you are justfaced with chickweed, think of me: chickweed AND stinging nettles.
The greenhouse needs to be vented 24/7. There is actually mossgrowing on the surface of the beds. Too wet, too stuffy. I scrappedthe moss off, cleaned up spent foliage from the tomatoes andcucumbers to let the air move around them, opened the vents wideand wished them all well. The tomatoes are turning red.
The Sungold are excellent, as usual. The Brandywine are lookingexcellent, almost red and really huge. My tendency to overwater thegreenhouse is not boding well but I think I have acted soon enoughto counter the wetness. The Sungold always needs water, no matterwhat. So that got a good watering with manure tea. Everything elseis thanking me for backing off.
If you do not have a vegetable garden this year, get planning rightnow. Pick your location for the plot: lots of sun, proximity towater (think about this if you haul water), and out of the wind.Get your ground prepared now so you will be ready for next season.Gather up a pile of manure, be it cow, horse, llama, chicken,rabbit so it will age and be ready to apply in the spring.
You need a vegetable plot in your life.
Rosemary Fitzpatrick has been gardening with gusto in Homer for 29years.