Money Monday: June 22, 2009

Today we have the garden report. Behold, we are fertile and have borne fruit vegetable!!!



This is the first zucchini, plucked from the garden yesterday. There are more, many, many more, tucked in around those wildly growing bushes…and this one was delicious. I ate about a quarter of it raw while making a fish curry with the rest of it. (Although frankly, the pound and a half of fish was dwarfed by the sheer volume of sliced zucchini, so really it was more of a zucchini curry with oh yeah some fish in it than fish curry.)

When I planted, I was really, really worried about my gardening attempts. I have no idea what I’m doing, I am easily distracted, I have a lot going on, I’m looking for a Real Job and if I get one what happens to my garden?, etc. etc. etc.

And then for those first few weeks, I went out there anxiously every day to note that nothing was happening. Was that a weed, or a plant? I froze in inexperienced panic, and refused to weed because how did I know I wasn’t pulling up the carrot babies?!

But then things started becoming plain. The corn was obviously corn, the carrots got those distinctive fuzzy tops, the difference between a cantaloupe and a weed became obvious and I spent about an hour every other day cussing at the weeds as I pulled them out.

Then things got crazy. The pumpkins and the zucchini exploded and are plotting world domination. This pumpkin is actually about to die, because this vine is not in the bed but is encroaching on the neighbor’s yard and will have to be cut back before it destroys the fence. Which probably says more about the state of the fence than the strength of pumpkin vines.



I swear, the corn is growing like a kid. One minute it was barely at my hip, the next?



Taller than me. And bearded up. My babies, they growin’ up so fast… {sniff, sniff!}

We have carrots…



…and tomatoes like these (except that some are cherries and some are beefsteak and some are heirloom) on every bush…



I didn’t take picture of them because they aren’t fruiting up yet, but the cucumbers and watermelons and cantaloupes are also doing great. The onions are coming right along.

However, we need a moment of silence for the leeks and the broccoli. Instead, we are cultivating a fine crop of fresh, organic weeds while I ponder what to put in there instead. (I’m thinking herbs.)



HOWEVER. One of the most exciting things in the backyard right now is something I actually planted about seven years ago. I have watered it, pruned it, fertilized and spoken lovingly to it from then on, and it has given me precisely nada. It’s cousin the lemon tree has cheerfully begun providing waaaaaaay too many lemons (I’ve got about three gallons of lemon juice in the freezer from the last go-round), but my little orange tree?

It was like a recalcitrant teenager. (Aside: I can’t believe I know how to spell recalcitrant.) It sulked in the backyard, always looking somewhat pathetic no matter what I did. No matter how I pruned, primped, tied or otherwise attempted to make it look like a healthy orange tree, it just languished. Each year it bloomed, but nothing came of it. (I knew it wasn’t an ornamental, because it actually had an orange on it when I bought it.)

Well…look at this:




(Sorry, it’s blurry…I was excited…)

The tree is covered in oranges, and frankly I’ve been kind of ignoring this tree so far this year. Obligatory citrus food every three months, that’s it.

I suspect sibling rivalry. It has a clear view of the garden beds, and I think it saw me cooing to the corn and wanted my attention back so :pop!:, out come the baby oranges.

I dragged my husband out to see. He doesn’t get out there much at all, and hadn’t seen the wild growth that has happened back there. He was duly impressed, and given the relative ease of success on this smaller, experimental patch we talked about expanding things next year.

We talked about going big enough to actually get to the point where we are making a significant dent in our food bill by growing a lot of what we need.

It’s a nice feeling. It feels like we’re wresting back a little of our own power, taking back some of our power over our own lives.

It’s a tiny step, but it feels almighty good right now.