It’s me, the self-proclaimed alright gardener. I call myself this because what I try to grow usually does… just sometimes real weird. I’ve been known to accidentally cross pollinate squash breeds and come out with a patty pan squash shaped cucumber that smells like a cantaloupe. I don’t try to get things to be weird, it just happens. Like Bob Ross says about no mistakes in art just happy accidents, I will take that with me to the world of gardening.
It’s the middle of February and I have already started planning my garden. I was telling my friend about that this weekend, and she sent me a picture of her basket full of onion starts and veggie seeds. So, I’m not alone in wanting to get going with this. Right now, we’re in Oklahoma’s “fake Spring”, which is the best time to start your garden in my opinion. Fake Spring gives you good weather days so you can go outside and figure out what you want to do this year. You also have time to clean out and prep last year’s flower beds. I did that last weekend and the weather was amazing, but the following Monday I wore a coat to work. Like I said, “fake Spring”.
One of the most enjoyable ways to garden is chaos gardening. I did this two years ago and I highly recommend it. It was the least stressful gardening experience I’ve ever had. I put all my herb seeds in a bucket, mixed it up, then threw them in my garden like a flower girl at a wedding. I did learn one drawback that ended up being a learning experience, I had no idea what certain herbs looked like when growing. Only having seen dill in a little bottle already dried from Walmart, I wasn’t sure if what I had popping up was that or something else. I learned more about what herbs and veggies look like and smell like as they grow. (Dill = pickles, it’s my favorite.) Did you know that the roots of a newly sprouted cucumber plant smell just like a cucumber? The same goes for tomato sprouts, and some strains of pepper plants. I didn’t know that until I was elbow deep in a work bench full of sprouting seeds. I went full bore last year with starting all of my veggies inside, complete with grow lights and fans. I did learn the hard way once again that some plants do better when started outdoors; particularly squash and cucumber since they really don’t like their roots messed with. They can be drama queens. Tomatoes can be dramatic too if you don’t help them build a strong stem, with the wind we have in Western Oklahoma a little wimpy stem isn’t going to hold up for very long. Which is where the fans came in, I would put it on high for several hours and occasionally hit them with a stick for good measure.
My mom always told me that if a plant isn’t doing good or producing any fruit you should go beat the crap out of it with a stick. Which is what I do. Honestly, it works like a charm every time. Thanks Mom! I’ve always tried to be a master gardener like her, if you ask anyone around that knows my mother they will tell you she’s always had a green thumb. I don’t know if I would say I have a green thumb, but at least my hair is.
I did have a helper in the garden last year. He would let me know where the tomatoes were, and if I was fast enough, I would even get to pick them before he ate them. My dog Ranger loved to follow me in the garden and monitor what was going on. Sometimes I did catch him sleeping on the job, but I let him get away with it since he’s so cute. He’s an older dog and doesn’t get around well, so seeing him actually run and hop out of excitement was amazing and brought me even more joy in the garden.
This year I am trying out the seed snail method. I used strips of a dog food bag, lined it with dirt and rolled it up like a cinnamon roll, then put seeds on the top. We’ll see how it goes! Next up for gardening: flowers!
