Beseeching the tomato gods

Whoo-hoo!  David rototilled and readied the tomato beds!  Now all we have to do is sacrifice a lamb, vestal virgin, or Henry to get a good crop this year.

Garden hopes

Hoping to avoid blight this year, we bought all our tomato plants at Russell's.  They had a great selection and what a selection of everything garden-related.  The complex itself is gigantic, a place we could not take VA without losing her or spending a jillion dollars on all the garden/kid/toy/art merch.

Henry was pretty good, sleeping or nursing -- yes, I whipped out a boob while walking around.

Just and Unjust War

Virginia: "Mama, why does that damn woodchuck keep eating our vegetables? What are you putting on the garden? Why is it fox urine?" 

I am ready to make an IED, plant it in his shed, and blow that sucker up. 

He nibbled everything, but I was able to harvest these for dinner.

Collateral Damage

Virginia is becoming adept at identifying vegetables and flowers.  I love her stance here -- it's just the kind of pose a landscaper conferencing with a client might strike.

She and David are assessing woodchuck damage to the peas.

Au naturel

Virginia reeeeally likes being naked, and she loves watering the garden.  Why not marry the two interests?  Henry isn't such a big help yet, but he's willing to go along for the ride.

I am surprised how large the garlic is!  No tomatoes in yet, but we're getting there.  We're pretty surprised how much we've done given the new baby.  Just makin' it, but makin' it!

5/23/10

Little Miss Eve is modeling the broccoli rabe we harvested today.  Virginia planted, watered, and cut it, but she refused to eat it.  It was pretty bitter (maybe we let it get too big?)

Gardener, cook

Virginia surprises me with her interest and her ability to help in the kitchen.  Here she is making a strawberry-balsamic dressing to finish the salad (pears, goat cheese, greens) we made with the lettuce she helped plant!  Hurray!  The first garden meal of the year.

Reneges

It sounds crazy, perhaps, but I think this year's garden will be easier to manage. How do I figure? One thing is Virginia is so helpful and interested in gardening. She may not plant seeds in perfect rows, but she doesn't annihilate the garden when she digs around. She asks, "Mama, can I dig here?" She loves using her garden tools and giving the plants drinks with her Wonder Pets watering can.

Another thing is her swing set. David and some friends are coming by tomorrow to build it. We've figuratively built it up so much getting Virginia ready for spring and Henry that it can't but disappoint us all. Nah, she'll love it. I just hope David can get it done before rain or a surprise arrival by Hank the Tank makes it a June project.

But back to the garden. David's post below is well-intentioned but misinformed. I don't remember agreeing to so many reductions. We are simplifying the process by buying most of our seedlings, but the variety is still a priority for me. Okay, so maybe we are reducing the number of tomato plants, but Virginia and I have already planted swiss chard, arugula, scallions, parsnips, and carrots. She and David put in lettuce, too.

Henry -- in my fantasies -- will be easy, sleeping under an umbrella while VA's swinging and we are working on staking pole beans. I also fantasize about maternity leave: three days home each week to work on house projects (what?? a clean house again???) and yard work.

We'll see, we'll see.

Return of the Gardeners

Another year, another blog post.

In less than a month, we'll add a Henry to the list of Lincoln Street Bernsteins, but for now it's just David, Camille, and Virginia...and we're doing some gardening. Last year's garden was a big disappointment--we never quite mustered the energy to prune or trim or fertilize or even water. The plants took over, the tomatoes contracted some horrible blight, and we failed to harvest a good half of the vegetables that grew. After a certain point, we just sort of...gave up. There was just too much going on with Virginia and... uh, there was something else, right? No? That was it? We're blaming the whole thing on Virginia? Okay, there it is: last year's miserable garden was all Virginia's fault. Well, that feels much better!

The plan with this year's garden is to scale down our ambitions. We're going to do a couple of things well, and that's it. The first step is to abandoned our grow lights. We may grow some vegetables from seed, but only if they can be planted directly in the ground. It's just too darn hard to care for the seedlings on a daily basis, and three out of four days just doesn't do it--too many plants die. Instead of the absurd number of tomato plants we had last year and the year before (up into the 20's, I think), we are going to have twelve. That way suckers can be picked, the plants won't be competing for sunlight, and watering won't take half an hour. We'll do beans, but fewer. Cucumber, but fewer. Squash, but fewer. Everything, but fewer! I feel lighter just saying it.

The garlic, planted last fall, is already on the loose, sprouting four new leaves (??) in the past two weeks. Between those rows, Virginia and I planted lettuce and mixed baby greens. So yes, the gardeners have returned, though whether we're triumphant is of yet to be determined.