Wednesday, March 19, 2008

C.G.P.A.

Tonight we walked over to the community garden so I could show Marc the garden plot that Mason and I picked out. It's .3 miles from my front porch to our garden plot, I kept track so I knew how far I'd have to go when it's the middle of July and 100+ degrees and I am dripping with sweat cursing out this stupid idea of a vegetable garden that I don't know how to take care of anyway.

dirt.


Nope, that's our garden neighbors dirt, Mase. Ours is the one behind you. The one that someone left carrots and tomato plants (complete with stakes) in for us to dig out and haul away. How kind of them. Thankfully it's not the one behind ours, the one so overgrown with whoknowswhat that I was afraid to let Mason get too close to for fear he'd fall in and I wouldn't be able to fish him out.

carrots.


So I have 101 square feet to plant. To care for. To plot and dig up and cultivate. I've got no idea here what I'm doing. I just mostly wanted something for Mason and I to do during the day during the summer. Apart from hiding in the house with the air conditioning going mach 5. I think a few carrots, some peas, some peppers and tomatoes? Some flowers for the prettiness factor?

wagon.


See all those other plots there? They're going to be the nice ones. The ones that are planted on a grid and mapped out with twine. The ones that have plants with fancy names like "Charantais Melon" and "Moonglow Tomato" and "Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon". The ones that have owners that probably won't forget to come water them. The ones that will reward their owners with a nice, hearty bounty at the end of the season with yummy fruits and perfect vegetables. But I have plans for Mason and I to paint some rocks for decoration around our container. That should count for something, right? As for everything else, the actual gardening part, we'll be winging it.

You can follow our community garden plot adventure (CGPA) through this Flickr set here. And I'll probably be boring ya'll with posts here every now and then.
Posted by at 11:12 PM
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12 comments:

  1. I think this is the coolest amenity! I'm going to try to grow things on our balcony in containers...we'll see how that goes. I usually start out with big ideas about growing stuff from seed and then I get sick of seeing skinny plants and just buy pretty ones from Whole Foods and stick them in my pots. I can't wait to watch your garden grow though :)
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  2. That is very cool. I have never seen a community garden before. I will be excited to see what you plant and how it turns out. My thumbs are black and I don't want to waste the seeds by attempting to grow anything!
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  3. I think this is such a cool thing. I'm excited to see what you grow. I've tried gardening, and it turns out I'm horrible at it. This is what I would do...Go to the store and buy veggies and then hide them in your wagon as you walk over to your plot and then make it look as if your pulling out all kinds of great veggies. People will really be impressed.
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  4. Erin It is a cool amenity! Lucky for me I don't have big ideas so I'll probably be thrilled that I have skinny plants. :)

    Tib Our neighborhood has 3 gardens! Crazy, huh? That's what I'm afraid of, too, wasting the seeds. That and having the scraggliest looking garden out there.

    Julie I about fell off my chair laughing. That's a great idea! I can just picture pulling perfectly clean, red, huge radishes out from the dirt - and tying beautiful green and red peppers to my scraggly plants. Hahahah!
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  5. Too cool, Erin!! I'm so jealous!! I'm all for growing things from starts... seeds don't like me.

    I bought this tomato plant for our balcony last summer...somehow managed to keep it barely alive. It's sitting on our new patio here and guess what I found yesterday. Tomatoes!!! In March!!! With no watering!!! :) hehehee gotta love SoCal.

    I'm excited to watch your adventures in gardening!
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  6. That looks so cool. I'm hoping that next spring we can get a garden going at the new house- we have no clue what we're doing, but that should give us enough time to learn!

    Thanks for saying hi on our blog! I never realized that Dave had (second I guess) cousins out there that were around our age. I love your mom, she's so sweet. I've only gotten to meet her a couple of times, but she is always so sweet with sending cards and things. Plus she left me a blog comment, which puts her high in my book!(my blog is unloved!)

    I'm excited to see another blogger in the family! Feel free to say hey or drop an email anytime. (lisa@imagineflash.com) Can't wait to see some of your digi-scrapping. It's such a great creative outlet if you love photography. If you need any tips or anything, feel free to hit me up =) I know a lot of good stores. Your photos are gorgeous! And it looks like you know your way around photoshop, so I'm sure you'll have awesome layouts!

    Your little man is too cute! I love his little face. Your photos of him are fantastic. We totally have stuff in common... not only the hobbies, but Ben was Yoda his first Halloween too! ;)
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  7. Daybreak seems like a neat place. My husbands company owns all of that (including Kenncott) and they have perks to get employees to move out there. I just have no desire to move - we are in such a great location. But his company is moving their offices to Daybreak in a few months - so maybe the commute will change his mind. :)
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  8. Oh come on Erin, you can do it! If i can do it--you for sure can!:) Just think of how proud you will be when you have something you grew that you can eat! :)
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  9. Lisa: Nice to meet you, too. We've lived in California for the past 8 years, and you just recently (fairly) moved to Alabama, right? So that's why our paths never have crossed in Utah really. And you are special -- my mom doesn't even leave me blog comments! :) I may totally take you up on the digiscrapping help sometime!

    Tib: We are pretty far out here. I grew up in Sandy and never thought I'd live so far west and south. But we LOVE it now ... and especially Daybreak. And we're getting lots built out here around us, too!

    Jill: Do you garden? That's it, I just recruited you! I'll teach you to quilt, you teach me to garden. Deal?
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  10. sounds like a good deal to me! PS i just sent you an email!!
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  11. Are you making fun of me? ;)

    We are novices as well. This will be only our second year of having our own garden.

    As a child I loved it, my aunt would give me a little section of her garden to cherish. When my parent finally got a yard I did not plant or anything, but I was out there everyday in my swimsuit (to get a tan and to look totally white trash) weeding. I never saw the fruits of my labor, mostly because my enthusiasm would run out. So seeing my garden grown last year was so encouraging. The guy who is next to use is amazing. Last year some of our seeds were late bloomers and he noticed. He planted stuff in our dead zones. When things finally started showing up we had all kinds of things we had never seen before.

    Also, last fall I read a book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It was very interesting and introduced me to the world of heritage seeds and organic gardening.

    Our garden is only magical because I think it is and I am always amazed at how things grow. I am so excited to see all these new things growing in our garden this year. We are #12.
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  12. Makayla: I am so not making fun of you! More like so jealous of the awesomely-named plants you have! :)

    I saw where your plot is today, we went over there this morning to dig up all the rotting carrots that someone left for us! Yuck! You're not too far away from us.

    Thanks for the encouragement though, it is such a wonderful thing to know that something you've put a lot of time and effort into can turn out so well!
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