I've always liked to grow vegetables. As a kid I tended a dry little patch, about 5x10 feet and was enchanted by the idea that you could make food just by sticking little seeds and plants in the ground. I remember growing radishes, which I never really liked to eat, but I liked trying to slice their crisp flesh as thinly as I could for the dinner salad. I think there may have been carrots at some point. One year I planted a little circle of corn. Mostly it was tomatoes, and probably some green peppers. I had cherry tomatoes planted around the edge one year but my older brother kept carelessly clipping them with the lawnmower so they didn't make it. The dirt was like cement by the middle of the dry Maryland summers and weeding seemed like an endless chore. But I loved growing those veggies.
I didn't grow any again til I was about 30 and living in a rented townhouse where the entire backyard was the size of my old veggie patch, and 2/3 of that was a cement patio. Not to be deterred, I bought a few bags of good dirt and filled up the area to the side of the patio (maybe 3x5 feet) and got to planting. I got hold of the book "Square Foot Gardening" which convinced me that I could grow enough veggies for some nice salads and side dishes just for me even in this tiny space, and the gardening bug bit me again hard. I tried to start some broccoli from seed, but my kitten ate the seedlings. I ended up buying transplants for broccoli. One of them burst into pretty yellow flowers because I kept thinking it wasn't time to harvest it quite yet. Still tasted good though. My 2 or 3 heads of home grown broccoli were DELICIOUS. I grew some really nice spinach, only to realize I don't like spinach. At all. I thought I'd use it in salads but something about the thick, meaty leaves grossed me out. I turned it into spinach and cheese quiche, which was yummy. Similarly, I planted swiss chard, enchanted by its good looks in pictures and descriptions of how easy it is to grow. It is pretty, and easy to grow. Unfortunately, like all greens to me, cooked swiss chard tastes like dirt. But I'm growing it again this year, thinking to use as a salad green. See spinach, above. Slow learner, aren't I? I also grew tomatoes and lettuce in that garden.
Then I moved to NE Baltimore, and thought about growing veggies again, but was too concerned about attracting urban wildlife (read: rats). Last fall I moved to a house in the county, ran across my Square Foot Gardening book again, and became obsessed once more. I bought the new edition, which talked about building raised beds with a rich, fluffy homemade soil mix. I stared at the sun patterns and tree shadows all winter, trying to figure out where if anywhere in my yard had enough sun. I finally decided to rely on the fact that the previous owner successfully grew a few tomatoes against the fence along the west side of the backyard, near the house. That area must have enough sun, I figured.
Well, it does, kinda. I built my boxes, and filled them with a mix of municipal compost (free from the county landfill, yay!) and peat moss. I built a trellis out of electrical conduit to support the tomatoes. And I planted. It turns out that my spot gets maybe 5 hours of sun a day in midsummer. This will be less in spring and fall. As a consequence, my spring crops didn't do much. I have two cabbages that I haven't given up on yet, which are valiantly trying to produce heads and if they succeed will be about 3 months behind schedule. But I seem to be having success with summer crops, somewhat to my surprise given the amount of sun. Tomatoes and cucumbers are thriving. Lettuce is also doing well, in spite of the heat. This is probably because of the shade. I suspect I can grow cool season crops all summer because of that shade....just very slooooooowly. So I'm going to try to make the most of my little garden, two 4x4 foot semishady squares.
Harvest to date: 3 green salads, one grape tomato, one cucumber, and 5 of the smallest carrots the world has ever seen. They were the size of peas.
