Sunday, January 31, 2010

Instructions to plant garden: get locked out of the house


(Back half of the back yard from my bedroom window.
Yes, we have a backyard in SF. Yes it is enormous for a city lot.
25' across. I'm not sure how deep - maybe 80'?)


(These may look all green and well, but they are all really weeds.)

I spent MANY hours readying my garden yesterday. Mind you, I didn't plan on spending many hours; I planned on spending 2 max to ready and plant some kale and mustard greens. But, then J took M on a bike ride to the bike shop to fix his bent rim from a minor accident where he was rear ended. I thought "oh, nice quiet hours; I'll get to go upstairs and do some work."

Only, I didn't. I found the back stairs door bolted from the inside. I didn't have keys on me to let myself out of the garage and through the front door. Oh well, I thought. I'll just prep my pea and lettuce bed and then they will be back.

Except they weren't. They decided to go on a long bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. So, I kept weeding, weeding, and weeding. I finally helped myself to J's Pepsi stash when it became clear they went on a bike ride. The biggest bummer was my peas were upstairs.

HOURS (like at 5!) later, my pea bed and more was prepped, only the peas were upstairs. Finally, I hear a little boy saying "DO. NOT. ENTER." over and over again (apparently the GG Park windmill garden is so water slogged that you can't ride your bike up to it - this is a big deal to M). Everyone was famished, so I sent the boys out to gather some chinese while I planted those peas!

For my own record keeping sake, I've planted the following
  • Leeks (American Flag, BI brand) - Jan 7th
  • Onions (Red Amposta, BI brand) - Jan 7th
  • White Lisbon bunching onions (BI) - Jan 7th
  • Dwarf Blue Curled Kale (BI)
  • Bright Lights Swiss Chard (BI)
  • Green Arrow Peas (BI)
  • Southern Giant Curled Mustard greens (BI)
  • Wild Arugula - Rocket Salad Roquette (BI)
  • "Sassy Salad" Mesclun mix (BI)
I'm kind of growing concerned because my onions really haven't appeared and only a few leeks, BUT I was pushing the envelope on planting time. It is so hard here because we get two or three days of beautiful high 50's sunny weather followed by 10 days straight of rain (although there is sun in there - even if locals seem to ignore that part). The rain days may have rotted the seeds - just too wet and not warm enough. I have a feeling that my desire to get stuff in the ground (I'm even pushing what I planted this week by about 14 days) may backfire. We will see.

In my shopping cart as we speak.... several fava beans (only bean that stands a chance of growing in our fog summers), another pea, several carrots, broccoli, pac choi, radishes and spinach.

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