I started out last year with this tiny garden outside my office door. I took this photo yesterday morning after cleaning out the weeds. All these plants are from last year. Those purple flowers to the left are chive blossoms, several varieties of strawberries, Santa Barbara daisies (not edible but pretty). There’s another barrel with last year’s potatoes popping up again and a pomegranate tree, plus more over by the motorhome we are turning into a tiny house.
I spend a lot of time writing about how we can choose consumer products that are made without toxic chemicals, but “toxic-free” also includes doing and making thing yourself without toxics. Such as organic gardening.
This year we had a lot of rain, so my little garden is popping with plants I planted last year.
I’ve got chive blossoms ready to eat right now. English peas I planted earlier this year are about to give a harvest. Strawberry plants are sending out runners and the new plants are about twice the size of the original plants and already producing flowers. The two raspberry canes planted last year have produced so many new plants we have been digging them up and replanting because they are overflowing the barrel.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The Earth laughs flowers.” Today I am saying, “Here in my garden, the Earth is laughing vegetables and fruits!”
I’m fortunate to have Larry and his mom and a brother and a sister—all experienced gardeners—and enough fertile soil that we can each garden to our hearts content. This morning there was a large basket of java beans just harvested that I think we’re having for dinner.
Next weekend we’re going to some wonderful plant nurseries where we can buy heirloom seedings for edible plants. I can’t wait!
As I was walking around my garden, looking forward to pulling raspberries and tomatoes right off the plants and into my mouth I suddenly thought, “Oh, the next step after farm-to-table is plant-to-mouth!” I can hardly wait to do that in a few days when the peas pop. Fresh English peas with chive blossoms right out of my hand.
Pea pods in my garden are about to burst open with peas!
I am doing ‘straw bale gardening’ this year – growing my vegetables in straw bales that I am ‘conditioning’ with a product called Milorganite. The author of my reference book indicated that this was an ‘organic way’. This product was not easy to find in my Indiana market (several hardware stores were not carrying it this year) – do know anything about Milorganite and it’s ‘organic nature”? Thank you for all your info!
It’s basically dried micro-organisms. See What is Milorganite? video.