Welcome to My Garden

 Hi there, 

I started this blog because my composition book of notes is threatening to turn into more composition books of notes. All about my attempts at gardening during these most challenging of times. I have always done some gardening most of my life. Tended and weeded vegetable gardens of different sizes. Containers and the types you have to nudge a wandering drafthorse from stopping by for lunch. Growing herbs mostly and nearly all of them in containers in the front, side and backyards of a landlocked household inside a major city during a pandemic. 

Not sure I have much useful information to pass along except making many mistakes. Overcooking Basil outside of a kitchen. Overwatering everything (but in my defense it's hard not to do that during the parts of summer that are the hottest on record) and dropping seeds in strange places which sprout up from doing what sometimes is the best thing to do when you garden. Ignoring them and staying out of their way. 

I started growing stuff just before my city and state locked down last spring because I know at some point if this continues I'll have less to spend on food and will have to try to supplement it with my own efforts to provide it. Or maybe someone else will need some of what my garden produces. Which is what a lot of people are trying to do because vaccines and such are months away still.  So much of the future is just in the unknown right now. Plus under lockdowns you're kind of limited on what you can do. One minute you're finishing a short story you're writing and the next, first the mayor issues a lockdown effective in a few hours and then the governor one ups him by saying there's a statewide one immediately. So as most of the states in the US did lockdown partially or completely, a new type of living began. We all know what that entailed.  So like other people I started a garden. 

I grew Basils for the table including Cinnamon, Genovese, Lemon, Sweet Basil (large leaf), Purple Ruffle that turned green.  Also Southern Curled Mustards which I love and Broad Leaf Sage and Flat leafed and Curled Leaf Parsleys (good for teas).  Experimented with different herbs including mints (tiny buggers which before you know it want to take over the world), Cilantro (ugh!), Thyme (common thyme is best left alone), Various peppers both sweet and spicy and one of my faves Fennel (starting with Bronze and trying Florence now). Also gems like Chervil (a cousin of Parsley), Summer Savory and lesser grown Basils like Lime and Thai Licorice. Medicinal herbs too. Plenty of those to choose from along with some plants already in many gardens! Purple Coneflower, Hyssops, Toothache plant, some others. All with learning curves. 

Gardened through blistering historic heat waves, followed by several weeks of ashy skies and very little sunlight. It's been surreal but it helps pass the time in a city that's still pretty much locked down.