How Does My Garden Grow?
The Annals of Chaos Gardening
That is indeed a good question. How does my garden grow? No, really. How’s it doing that?
If you’ve read my previous gardening posts, you’ll know I’m fairly new to gardening (like just a couple of years). So, I am astounded when things actually grow. For instance, I have an abundance of parsley and basil in the raised bed and we’re actually able to use them when cooking. Yay, us!
I have a big rosemary plant and a sage plant in pots, and those always get used in cooking, but I’m thrilled with the basil, parsley, and hopefully soon, dill.
Most people grow tomatoes and peppers in their pots, or small gardens. And those really are easy to grow, and almost immediately rewarding things to plant. However, I have bad reactions to nightshades, especially raw tomatoes, so I don’t grow tomatoes. We do grow peppers, because my husband loves them, and turns them into chili oil. Otherwise, no nightshades here at Ornery Dragon Gardens.
Right now, with all the rain we’re getting, I have an abundance of roses. As I’ve mentioned, I inherited my rose bushes, so I can’t really take credit for them. I have been pruning them the last couple of years, and I can tell that’s helped them.
My patio plants are thriving and so are my yard flowers. We (by “we” I mean husband) did have to pull out one of the roses when I realized it got rose rosette disease. Now, I’m watching the two that are on either side of where it was, like a hawk. So far, they appear to be unaffected. Fingers crossed!
I’m more than a little annoyed with one squirrel who seems to have claimed our back yard as his/her territory. The little bugger keeps digging holes in my starter box. Hopefully some of the lacinato kale in there will survive the depredations.
Chaos gardening continues apace, and I’m seeing good results. But perhaps the best thing about having a garden is making the morning tour of everything. Even on the hot days I know are coming, wandering around among the plants, and yes, barefoot in the grass (yes, I keep an eye out for fire ants and other nasty critters, but I love love love going barefoot), is a wonderful way to start my day.
The garden chaos settles me.
I was just reading your piece aloud to wifey, and we chuckled about the squirrel you mentioned. The western suburbs of Cleveland have countless squirrels, chipmunks, opossums, skunks, woodchucks and the worst for her tulips are the deer that roam in groups and chomp them down to nubs. That's if the other critters didn't dig up the bulbs. Yes, critter chaos happens.
There are few things nicer than the morning garden wander with a cuppa coffee.