Back To The Garden

During the first week of August, with high hopes, I planted seeds for the fall garden.  If you are like me, you start the gardening season excited and your mind is filled with expectations of a fruitful harvest of delicious produce.  You plan the layout of the rows and choose the date you plant.  You hold the tiny seeds in your hand and marvel at the mystery of it all.  How can a plant be contained in a tiny, seemingly dead seed? 

This year I planted all the cole crops (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage), along with cucumbers and squash into seed pots that I intended on transplanting into garden soil.  The seeds sprung from the soil with great vigor and the tiny leaves tracked the sun.  

The germination on the seeds was phenomenal!  Those 'dead' seeds had a will to live, to grow, to produce good food for us.  Even some heirloom, non-hybrid seed I had saved from 7 years ago sprouted.  Unbelievable.  

I laid out the seedlings on the back patio, out of direct sunlight where they would be cooked in the hot summer sun.  Tricia kept them watered and took very good care of them.

The cotyledons resemble baby birds with mouths agape, awaiting the momma bird to bring sustenance.  Only in this case, it is the sun bringing what the young plants need to thrive and grow.

The future seemed bright, but then storm clouds grew - literally.  Hurricane Laura did not affect our seedlings, but three weeks growth without transplanting into the soil adversely impacted all of the cole crops.  They grew long and leggy and when I transplanted them into the garden soil without adequate watering because I was working long hours, they baked into the soil and perished.

The squash and cucumbers are hardier plants.  It was quite a task to untangle them and plant them in the soil.  I broke 3 or 4 plants while untangling them, but the majority survived.

I planted the squash in the bed in the side yard, not in the garden.  I'll save room in the garden to replant seeds directly into the soil as a good Plan B.  There is still time.  Plan C is out there as well.  If replanting process isn't successful, I can always go to the feed store and purchase plants.  I'd rather plant from seed, but if that doesn't work out, then planting store-bought plants is fine with me.

I like to keep a little garden journal, marking what I planted, when, and where.  I realize that there are spreadsheets and fancy programs that track days to harvest, etc., but I like just writing it down the old fashioned way.  My wife says I'm hard-headed like that!

Before digging holes, I made my way to the henhouse with a bucket and a shovel and I dug beneath the roosting bars and pulled out some composted chicken litter.  Fresh chicken litter would burn the little plants, but I incorporate a little of this composted manure into the soil in the hole I dig to give the squash and cucumbers some nutrients to give them a boost.

I use an old kitchen spoon to gently lift the seedlings from the seed pots, trying not to damage the tiny roots.  The plant is placed into the hole and the soil mixed with chicken litter is placed around the roots.  I water the plants in and pat the soil in place.

I pull a three to four inch layer of mulch/wood chips around the base of the young plant.  This will keep the moisture in the soil to give the seedling a fighting chance.  Even though it is mid-September, it is still summertime.  Without some protection, the sun would cook these young plants.  The mulch gives a protective layer, keeping the soil moist around the roots.  The mulch and wood chips eventually decompose, becoming part of the soil, providing fertility for this and future crops.

Gardening is not fool-proof.  There are many variables and many things that can go wrong.  There are also many things that can go right, resulting in the satisfaction of a small measure of self-sufficiency as well as the enjoyment of nutritious, tasty meals.