Garden update:

Volunteer sunflower (we think) is about four feet high.

I finally got impatient and picked the one carrot that actually grew -- it was too teeny to even eat. Oh, well. I'll have to tell the little boy who planted it that I messed up and picked it too soon.

The cauliflower is flowering -- it never made a head of cauliflower, but the flowers are beautiful.

There's a big, fat blossom on one of the zucchini plants, and tons of buds on all of them. I think zucchini will be successful.

There are 20 or so flowers on the tomato plant.

There are 20 or so strawberries, in varying stages of ripeness, and I finally harvested our first strawberry -- that is, the first one that didn't get eaten by slugs the second it started to turn red. It only took three years to get that one strawberry! :-)

Let's see, what else? Oh, yes, the bean plant looks like it's doing fine. I may plant a couple more hills of zucchini, though, if that's going to be the real thriver in this garden.

Oh! And the apple tree has hundreds of lovely apples on it. In a couple months, I'm thinking we'll have a lot of pie and strudel around here.

Speaking of my garden, I have now got lettuce sprouts, and beans, and carrots where there were none a few weeks ago (from seed -- so exciting!). Also, the strawberries and purple cauliflower are doing really well, and the tomato seems to be doing fine.

[I have no local filter; sorry.]

Would any locals be willing to come and keep me company for an hour or so in the next week, some time between dawn and dusk, while I clear my garden plot? If you're willing to help with the clearing, cool, but just company would be great, too. I think I can get most of it done in an hour, but I'm having trouble motivating myself.

I live in North Oakland; I can offer food and tasty beverages to anyone willing to come sit on a park bench and watch me get all sweaty. :-)

[Posted a few places; sorry if you see dupes.]

Well, I've been doing the garden in short bursts to keep from burning out, and I finally have the whole square-foot plot planted. I'll take pictures soon, but here's what I have planted:

rainbow chard?	violet queen cauliflower	lettuce	rainbow bush beans
rainbow chard?	violet queen cauliflower	violet queen cauliflower	rainbow bush beans
red carrots	red carrots	momotaro tomatoes	fino verde basil
yellow onions	strawberries	beets	beets

I only planted one tomato plant this year. I know tomatoes won't do all that well in my plot because of all the shade, but I can't seem to let go of the need to have fresh tomatoes. Maybe I'll plant some more in containers in stonebender's back yard (with his permission, of course) and see if they can handle only being tended once a week.

The "rainbow chard?" is because I planted some seeds that had spilled in my seed box, and I *think* they're chard, but I don't know for sure.

Oh, and since the last time I was there, there are suddenly leaves on the apple tree!

[posted to my LJ and a couple gardening groups; apologies if you see it more than once.]

Well, it wore me out, as I thought it would, but I took it relatively easy. Spent a half hour weeding just my square-foot box. Tomorrow, I'll do a half hour in my plot and a half hour in the common areas. I'm shooting for an hour a day this way, 2-3pm. It made me really happy to see that the strawberry plant that twostepsfwd gave me is still thriving; I hope we get berries this year!

Sadly, the frog in the userpic got broken while I was away from the garden. Perhaps I will buy a new mascot.

Today, I'll do some plannin'. Tomorrow, some plantin'. Yay! Garden!

My life has, as some of you know, been stressful and scary for me lately. Still, it takes so little to make me happy. Give me a walk to the Berkeley Bowl, a few minutes (and I do mean a few -- it's cold and windy out today!) in my garden, and a week when work basically makes sense to me, and I can feel my happy place coming back.

Doesn't hurt that my icky symptoms are at a minimum this week.

[posted to my personal journal, norcalgardening, gardensnotgas, sq_ft_garden, and sq_ft_gardening. My apologies if you see it five times.]

So far, no garden pics (I haven't been in a picture-taking mood lately), but there's lots of garden joy this week. Last Friday, choirboypuppy came by to help me with some weed removal and planting, and to keep the garden cat company.

So far, the grid isn't nearly full, but it looks like this (tonight I'll plan what to put in the empty spaces):

pending	pending	1 tomato (black zebra)	1 tomato (super sweet 100)
pending	pending	pending	1 sweet basil
pending	reserved for slug trap (yeast/sugar mixture)	pending	pending
1 verbena (still there from last year)	1 strawberry (also from last year)	pending	pending

My goal is to go over there every day for at least a quick visit, and so far I'm doing well. Today, I laid down copper tape and pulled a few tiny weeds, along with watering the plot. Tomorrow, I plan to water the plot, water the butterfly-attractor plant I bought for the garden fence, put up my twine dividers, place my slug trap, and plant some seeds.

We'll see how it goes.

Behind the cut, a few photos of the garden. The ones of the tomato flowers and the Chinese broccoli didn't come out, but here are five photos of what I've come to call "my plant babies". someotherguy is going to watch over them while I'm gone, and when I get back, I'm hoping for some tomatoes, at the very least. Looks like the beets will really yield, too. Here's hoping!

( Plant babies! )

More marigolds are sprouting. Also three out of four lettuces, and TONS of beets. Happy happy, and I got to show dryadgrl around the garden, and she was so cute and happy about it that it made me even gladder about the whole thing. We ate little samples of stuff as we went -- mint, mostly -- and it was so cool. She tasted my apple, and I don't mean that in a smutty way.

She and I also spent a fair bit of time bonding over finding really wonderful people to love, and listening to each other about stuff, and talking over each other, and laughing, and eating. Mmmm, mangos! Mmmmmmm.

The mailbox Weird, but of all the pictures I've taken of the garden this week, this is my favorite.

Behind the cut, more garden pictures. This time, I took some photos of other people's plots and some of the common area. I think the whole thing is looking so pretty right now. Next, I should make myself a gardening icon. Maybe Mr. Froggy wouldn't mind.

( more photos )

Yay, seedlings!

Chinese broccoli (*wave at stonebender*), lettuce, and marigolds are sprouting. And my new sprayer head gives me a nice, fine mist that doesn't disturb my soil. Happy happy.

(I thought of mulching the tomatoes, but I'm there every day to water and weed, if necessary, so I'm gonna pass for now.)

My froggy wants a less weedy place to sit, though, and I want a nice beach chair or papasan for sitting under the tree.

Might've watered the tree too much -- lots of fruit flies under it today. Is that bad?

Home sick with yucky tummy stuff. Yesterday, though, we took photos of the garden, and I may get around to posting them soon. Oh, and this weekend, someotherguy's siblings and niblings are coming to visit, which is exciting (they're just coming for Sunday night/Monday morning, but still, cool).

I did it! I went over and blocked off my squares, and now they're all planted. Behind the cut is a representation of what's planted where. (cassidyrose, hope you don't mind that I traded one of your cherry tomatoes for some strawberries and herbs.) (Eggplant will come later, as it has to be started inside, and bush beans will go in when something else is harvested or something. I got so many gifts that I didn't have room for everything, and I'm not gonna overplant. You hear me, rsc?)

I took off my shoes and walked in the moist earth, and it took me back to the days on the commune, but this time, I wasn't helping in someone else's garden -- this time I was growing what will please me and my family, and I felt all those feelings that make me start talking woo-woo language -- that connectedness, that sense that my roots go into the earth, all that stuff that for me requires absolutely no belief in a deity or a sentient earth. Anyway, it was glorious, and I'm covered in dirt and very happy.

( the table is behind this cut -- just imagine that the squares are the same size; I've forgotten how to do that in HTML )

Yay!

So I was feeling really crashy when someotherguy came to pick me up from work. Some good things happened, though, and I'm feeling much better, though still really wiped out.

1) My seed order came (two things I was having trouble finding in person and ordered online)

2) Some mugs I'd bought for someotherguy on eBay came

3) When I got home, someotherguy had *already built the garden box*! I knew it was a possibility, but he didn't mention it on the way home, so I was completely prepared to make the box after dinner. It is lovely! Behind the cut, you can see photos.

4) Took the box to my plot, filled it with Mel's Mix, and came home to eat pork chops and rest for a bit. Next, I'm going back across the street to do the actual planting. It's so nice that it's almost 7pm and there remain hours of daylight. Yay!

( Three pictures of our garden-in-progress )

Building the box last night hit a couple of snags, but it's all right --
I'll figure it out tonight.

Today, my mental focus is nearly nonexistent, so I'm just rolling with it.
I'm not finding the oomph to write anything, and I will just sit and be
content to be paid for doing a lot of daydreaming. (Hard to believe, but
I'm actually really good at my job, and can do it when my mind is
somewhere else.)

Tonight, a visit to golden_c_turtle's place, and some
box-building. I'm hoping to get all the plants in the ground by tomorrow,
but if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. I'm really very zen about the
whole thing. After all, I've waited two years for this garden. I can wait
another few days if necessary.

So my total cost for this garden has been $108 and change. It would have been more if people hadn't so graciously given me stuff, and I don't foresee any major expenditures for the rest of the year. I've already gotten well over a hundred dollars' worth of hobby fun out of it, and if I get some lovely fresh tomatoes out of it, even better.

My hands are stinging from something sting-y in the weed pile. My fingers are pierced with rose thorns. I'm hot and sweaty and stinky, and I'll bet you can guess the next part -- I'm *oh* *so* *happy*.

someotherguy did TONS of work, unsolicited. Our garden is much less weedy than it was last night. My adorable solar-powered light-up-bellied frog is ensconced in his new corner. Some snails are really pissed at me. My box parts are in the plot waiting to be put together (either tomorrow morning or evening). By tomorrow night, there will be a garden. I am elated.

(The box looks so much smaller in its context. My plot really is huge in comparison to what I was expecting. I am not going to give in to the temptation to overplant, though. One thing at a time.)

6 different tomato plants (thank you, cassidyrose and ptor!)
strawberries and verbena (thank you, twostepsfwd!
beets
carrots
loose leaf lettuce
marigolds
anaheim chilis
chinese broccoli
thai basil
tricolor bush beans
possibly favas
japanese eggplant
onions

Yay!