Venus Loci

Yup.  Just like my him – minus the ponytail, of course.  Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night keeps my garden from making vegetables.  Our Texas winter has been just about as predictable as the stock market for the last two months.  One day it’s 75 degrees and sunny, then two days later it’s 32 degrees and snowing.  My plants aren’t sure what to do with themselves, but they continue to trudge forward in spite of it all.  Seeds have been slow to sprout & transplants have been hesitant to grow.  The only thing showing zero regard for the erratic conditions are my strawberries, who seem convinced that now is the perfect time to set fruit.

crazy strawberries.

I keep catching myself thinking that this harsh winter has set me back in the garden but in reality I’m right on track (if not a little ahead).  At this time last year I had 2 types of lettuce, 2 types of onions, and edamame planted.  I didn’t even have an herb garden yet!  This year by the 1st of March the garden will boast 3 varieties of lettuce, 2 varieties of onions, spinach, arugula, 2 varieties of radishes, beets, strawberries, carrot seedlings, potato starts and broccoli.  Not to mention the cilantro, mint julep, catnip, camomile, oregano, rosemary and sage in the herb bed.  In 2 weeks I’ll start planting the March crops: summer squash, corn and tomatoes.  I can’t WAIT to plant the corn.  It is going to look absolutely ridiculous in it’s tiny raised planter.  I fully intend to relive my  rural Lancaster County childhood by running back and forth through the single row, 8 stalks long.  It’s going to be great.

lots of goodies growing!

Milo helps keep the weeds down between trips to the catnip.

Though the garden will soon be bursting with productivity, there are a few problem areas still needing to be solved.  For one, I’ve got a cat problem.  For the sake of being positive, let’s call it a challenge.  My challenge has two parts.  One: my lovely neighbor kitty Maybe, thinks that I built the raised beds for her to use as a litter box.  I had this problem last year too but it wasn’t such a big deal because my direct seeding in the garden was limited to edamame.  This year is a different story.  So far she’s made ditches through my beets, piled mountains on my radishes, and hollowed out pits in my carrots.  I can’t really blame her because she had no idea that seeds had been planted there and were germinating under her paws.   And I have to admit that the beds do look like glorious feline restroom facilities.  I’m hoping that she’ll find other places to bury her treasure once larger plants prohibit her from breaking & entering (& pooping).  But for now I have to keep my eyes out.  My second cat challenge is with the catnip.  It took several months but the kitties have finally figured out that they can climb into the herb bed and roll/graze/burrow in the catnip whenever they like.  I’ve come to expect the catnip to look brush-burnt.  Cat hair covers it like a wispy mold-like disease.  Kitties roam the neighborhood looking dazed and haunted.  I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do about this challenge.  I’ve considered moving the catnip to grow light indoors and charging by the leaf.  If anyone has any better ideas, let me know.

My second garden problem is the soil loss out of bed 2.  I followed the bed-building method we were taught in the Citizen Gardener class last fall, but I did not follow it as closely as I ought to have.  Because I didn’t put mulch down around the planter, soil is slipping through the cracks.  Each week I inspect the bed the soil level seems to have sunk another 1/8″ inch.  The whole thing looks a bit messy.  The messy part doesn’t bother me much, but it would be nice to keep the weeds down around the bed.  This is an easily solve-able problem and the next time I head out to the Natural Gardener I’m going to pick up some of their hardwood mulch.

Beyond those small challenges I’m really pleased with how the garden is coming along in 2010.  I’ll be even more pleased once I can begin harvesting.  The lettuce is getting close, and I’ve been enjoying the herbs all winter long.  I’m tickled pink by the volunteer plants I discover each week.  The volunteer lettuce is absolutely out of control.  This week I saw that my mint julep has fully escaped the herb bed and is coming up randomly throughout the front yard.  I imagine it won’t be long before my entire front lawn is edible landscape!