The Long Absence

Well, despite my good intentions last summer, I completely failed at keeping up with the blog. Work took over, and with the boyfriend working out of the province I was doubly busy. My life has been pretty much taken up with work, laundry and sleeping since then. But with the sun shining and the weather warming, I'm trying to get back on track.

Last summer's garden was a mixed bag of success and disappointment. Most of the tomato plants were wiped out by some kind of blight (the result of too much rain and too little warm hampering my intensive gardening style). But the peas were glorious, the beets delicious and the carrots were fantastic. I didn't get any parsnips - they didn't want to germinate, even. I had a problem with some devilish burrowing rodent (mice? moles?) and so had to struggle to keep my basil upright and my onions whole. The red peppers didn't like the weather, either, and so bore little fruit. But, the Cossack Pineapple Ground Cherry plant was AMAZING and I froze so many of the little guys - they've been an amazing addition to smoothies this winter. I had great success with beans - although I didn't realize how many bean plants you need in order to get enough to live off of. The biggest thing I learned was that I'm lucky not to have to completely depend on my garden for my nourishment.

I felt a lot of disappointment about my lack of time for gardening - I just couldn't keep up. Part of that is my work reality, and part of it was the weather (it rained every day in our area) but I think there is also some truth to that suggestion that beginners start small - it's more work than one would expect.

But I'm eager to start again - with a little more experience to guide me.

So, I've started my tomato, pepper and basil plants. The tomatoes are doing well at 3 weeks old, and the peppers are coming along. If the weather holds this weekend, I'm going to turn over the raised beds, through in some compost, and put in a few peas. Some of last year's onions are popping up, so I'll be interested in seeing what happened to them after being underground for so long.... I think that this is my year to learn about onions.

Quite a few of the RDP'ers from last year sent me some photos of their adventures, so I'll post them here in the near future.

Happy spring. Hope you're planning on growing.