How I Got Into Gardening (Patreon)

This is the first year I was stupid enough to try to grow seeds. This is exactly how it went. 

Apparently scarlet runner beans feed on neglect. WHO KNEW.

It just occurred to me that one of the projects that's taking up all my time - my garden - is something I haven't shared with you guys! That seems rude. Here, take a gander at my trash garden.

There's my neglect-loving scarlet runner beans, around a teepee made of old poles I found on the patio, left by some previous tenant.

Here's Pip, in the middle of the anti-cat defense system I built out of sticks to keep the been babies safe.

These freaking gorgeous old tiles were in a trash pile in the alley, so I snatched them up and edged the kale with them. 

I planted the kale all wrong - I read a "full sun" endorsement for planting kale, but it was written by someone in the Pacific northwest! - so what looks like death surrounding them is actually little individual sun shields made of old wire grid panels I found in someone's trash pile, and ivy that I wove through the wires. 

They looked less like death before the leaves shriveled up in the sun:

Speaking of trash and death, here's my first garden box, made with random wood from the garage, Luke's school's shop class scraps, and - those gorgeous two front pieces -  my friend Joy's old deck. She informed me too late that the wood is treated and therefore not ideal for a vegetable garden box - the arsenic can leach into the soil - but I did some reading and it sounds like this won't kill me unless I eat an absolute SHIT TON of veggies edged by treated wood. 

Regardless, it *isn't* ideal, so I'll probably reuse this box for inedible flowers next time.

For now, I partitioned the snow peas to the back, far from the treated wood up front. I also sectioned off the front part of the box to sow seeds from my friend Heather's zinnias and Polish marigolds that she harvested last year.

The most time-consuming part of gardening has been, by far, coming up with ways to keep Pip (and any other animals) from turning my garden into a toilet, which is why there's deer netting wrapped around bamboo shoots and staked to the ground. So far it's worked pretty well! Cats do NOT like getting their lil paws stuck in deer netting when they're trying to do their delicate business.

During a brief cantaloupe-obsessed phase of spring, I got two cantaloupe seedlings before finding out how high-maintenance they are. I probably shouldn't have put them in the ground as early as I did - we still had a few 39-degree nights - but I cut up an old black grill cover to serve as "black mulch" for them, after learning that black mulch can increase the soil temperature by 5 degrees, and so far... well, they're not dead, so YAY.

I cut down some nearby bamboo shoots and dug them into the ground to hang solar-powered string lights from (I feel very bourgeois about the lights but it's balanced out with the amount of actual trash I'm using otherwise). I'm probably going to reroute the lights into the pear tree above the picnic table, because I keep clotheslining myself and I'm only 5'3". 

Shepherdstown is having a laid-back, unofficial garden tour this weekend - basically anyone with a sign that says "come on in," you can just walk into their yard, that's the whole tour. No tickets or RSVPs, just come enjoy Shepherdstown and creep in on people's yards. This is definitely my kind of event! 

Thus the rerouting of the lights; I love cartoons but I don't want someone taking down the whole shebang like a Merrie Melodies skit. 

That said, if you're local, you absolutely should come visit this weekend and creep on people's yards. I know I will. You'll find mine by looking for the garden with the most garbage in it. Mine is also the most frustrating gate you'll encounter on the tour. It's old and busted. If you're worthy, you shall pass.

Thanks for, well, reading this much about my dumb garden full of trash. If I'm late on any updates, this stupid pile of photosynthesis is to blame.