Random thoughts on Gardening

My goal for the summer is to get the most out of the garden that I can.  I'll admit that I have gone a bit green with the whole thing.  It all started with a small bucket of worms...  not just any worms mind you but red worms.  They were a gift from my mother (maybe she was paying me back for all the kittens I brought home as a child).  As it turns out red worms are quite handy to have around.  They can live quite happily in a plastic bin in the kitchen and they eat about a 1/2 lb of food waste a day.   Even better than the tiny amount of water I save from not running that food through the garbage disposal is that red worm by product is great fertilizer.  I didn't plan on going green or on having worms for pets however it has turned into a fun project.  

I had so much fun growing worms and making good dirt I decided to go a step further and buy buy heirloom seeds for the garden this year.  Heirloom seeds can be  harvested and used the next year so, in theory, I won't have to buy seeds again.  Don't try this with corn.  Heirloom corn does really funny things, it grows this gross stuff called smut and it cross pollinates so you get a random mix of corn on each Cob.  This can be fun because you never know what you will get, however I plant some good quality sweet corn to eat and a little bit of heirloom seeds to experiment with.  Heirloom squash also does really funny things.  You can get some unique looking squash especially if you plant gourds in the mix.  I have a lot of fun with it all.  The other great thing is that plants just come up the next year.  I already have lots of little sunflowers and squash that are coming up volunteer.  These will be my earliest and best plants if if they don't freeze.

I hope next year I will have all the fertilizer and seeds I need and some to share.