Wednesday, May 30, 2012

It's Thyme for an update on the Clifton Park Garden Plot

It's hard to believe that it has been six weeks since the last update.  The results of the garden have been amazing.  Since planting the garden, I have had the pleasure of visitors with expertise in gardening.  Alice, who now lives in the area but is from Africa came by to visit.  She was a wealth of knowledge.  It was truly grueling day, but I learned that I had to do a little more tilling and remove the many stones from the garden plot.  After two days of tilling by hand, I had decided to do some new school farming and leave all the stones in.  I am glad that Alice stopped by before I got my plants in the ground.  She is a wealth of experience and was a true mentor.  I am grateful.  We worked very hard that day and I can see that our work has paid off.

The farming story continues.  I planted 3 varieties of lettuce (butter crunch, romaine, and red leaf).  I also planted hot chili peppers, habanero peppers, jalapeno peppers, heirloom tomatoes, collards, cabbage, kale, broccoli, giant dinosaur kale, tatsoi, sage, oregano, basil, mint and pineapple mint.  Although I have been farming in containers for the past 4 years, I have never planted anything from seeds.  I decided to give it a try.  I planted swiss chard, beets, radishes, cherry tomatoes, green beans, carrots, summer squash and onions.  I was a little worried at first, but we had a lot of rain, and I can hardly believe my eyes, everything, with the exception of the carrots, onions and cherry tomatoes have grown very well.  Those should be out in the next month or so.  This past week, I added some new things including cucumbers, Japanese eggplant, zucchini, rosemary, more tomatoes, and I even scored an Abraham Lincoln Heirloom tomato plant from work.

The best part of gardening is giving.  When I harvested my lettuce I was able to give lettuce to 5 neighbors and 5 friends, so that they could enjoy a nice salad from my garden too.  I am really enjoying gardening!  

Visitors to the garden (below) - photo compliments of Harold E. McCray
April 29, 2012 (below)
 May 7, 2012 (below)
 May 25, 2012 (below)

No comments:

Post a Comment