We won't speak of my attempt at gardening this year. There wasn't much of an attempt to speak of. I couldn't bother with flowers or vegetables; I was busy growing far better things...
It's a good thing I'm not a 1930s housewife or we'd have starved. I didn't plant a single vegetable this year... Actually, I think we planted peas and perhaps even harvested and ate the peas but that all happened before the peas even made it into the house so it hardly counts. And we did prepare the front garden bed and sprinkle some wildflower seeds on it. I think we got some flowers, too. But mostly we got weeds.
I left last year's carrots in the ground all winter long, though, and in the spring they bolted right up—they were five feet tall or taller! Some were taller than me! Who knew!? They put out beautiful white flower heads, which the pollinators seemed to enjoy, so I left them there, acting as flowers rather than vegetables for a season.
By the time we got back from our three-week trip to Utah, our garden was in a scary, scary state. I weeded the front bed and yanked out the carrots, which had gone to seed. I thought it would be a fun experiment to plant a few of the seeds, just to see if they would germinate. This probably violates some copyright law somewhere but we'll call it fair use, okay? Anyway, we didn't ever end up doing that, exactly. At least, not on purpose. At least, not until today.
I figured the seeds would have to dry out and so I left them on the driveway to do so. But then it started raining and the seeds didn't ever quite get around to drying out. But apparently they don't have to dry out completely because today we noticed that our driveway was sprouting hundreds of baby carrots!
Carrots don't like to be transplanted but they also can't grow on a driveway, so I put Rachel to work "transplanting" our baby carrots. It wasn't a hard job since all she had to do was pick up the dead flower heads and place them on the top of the soil in the planters we prepared.
Here she is holding a flower head in the palm of her hand:
See how many little carrots are sprouting?!
She wanted to show the underside as well:
Those will need to be thinned for sure! We'll see how they work out, if they work out. At any rate, they'll be good company for the broccoli we're growing, assuming it doesn't get drowned out from all this rain.
Also, we had a lovely monarch butterfly visit our butterfly bush today. They're so beautiful to watch!
It's a good thing I'm not a 1930s housewife or we'd have starved. I didn't plant a single vegetable this year... Actually, I think we planted peas and perhaps even harvested and ate the peas but that all happened before the peas even made it into the house so it hardly counts. And we did prepare the front garden bed and sprinkle some wildflower seeds on it. I think we got some flowers, too. But mostly we got weeds.
I left last year's carrots in the ground all winter long, though, and in the spring they bolted right up—they were five feet tall or taller! Some were taller than me! Who knew!? They put out beautiful white flower heads, which the pollinators seemed to enjoy, so I left them there, acting as flowers rather than vegetables for a season.
By the time we got back from our three-week trip to Utah, our garden was in a scary, scary state. I weeded the front bed and yanked out the carrots, which had gone to seed. I thought it would be a fun experiment to plant a few of the seeds, just to see if they would germinate. This probably violates some copyright law somewhere but we'll call it fair use, okay? Anyway, we didn't ever end up doing that, exactly. At least, not on purpose. At least, not until today.
I figured the seeds would have to dry out and so I left them on the driveway to do so. But then it started raining and the seeds didn't ever quite get around to drying out. But apparently they don't have to dry out completely because today we noticed that our driveway was sprouting hundreds of baby carrots!
Carrots don't like to be transplanted but they also can't grow on a driveway, so I put Rachel to work "transplanting" our baby carrots. It wasn't a hard job since all she had to do was pick up the dead flower heads and place them on the top of the soil in the planters we prepared.
Here she is holding a flower head in the palm of her hand:
See how many little carrots are sprouting?!
She wanted to show the underside as well:
Those will need to be thinned for sure! We'll see how they work out, if they work out. At any rate, they'll be good company for the broccoli we're growing, assuming it doesn't get drowned out from all this rain.
Also, we had a lovely monarch butterfly visit our butterfly bush today. They're so beautiful to watch!
I'm sure our garden will be better tended next year...maybe.
I had some parsley grow in between bricks and whatnot by some stairs one year because of similar circumstances. It'll be interesting to see if you get any decent carrots out of those. We had one year we did a good garden (before Mal was born) and haven't done much since, sadly. I always have good intentions but life gets in the way. And now I've got to battle to reclaim our yard from random tree sprouts and blackberries, so who knows how long it'll be before a garden happens again!
ReplyDeleteThat's neat! I love the pictures!
ReplyDelete