Saturday, May 30, 2009

A green thumb...

I think not. Every year my husband and I try our thumb at gardening. Some years it has been vegetables and some years just plants. Either way they pretty much end up with the same ending conclusion... we are not meant to grow our own food. Each time I bring home a beautiful healthy plant my husband has the same words for it "sorry to know you will be living out the last of your days soon".

Why do we continually put ourselves through this laborious summer of watering, weeding, and worrying about our little plantings? Maybe for the joy of that 1 bloom or the tiny jalapeno the we grew. Many people garden for relaxation? How does that work? We do enjoy it but relaxing is not interchangeable here for us. We care about our little plants and worry about our bunny eating them.

With all the advertisements about upside down gardening we thought we would give that a shot this year. We purchased this upside down right side up planter with the highest of hopes. In fact we purchased 2! One for us and one for my mother, perfect for her city patio. DH researched and found out the best type of plants to grow together and the type of plants that would not grow to long upside down so we would not have food on the floor. We were excited. We ran to our favorite nursery where we bought 2 inch tomato plants. They had to be small to fit through the holes. We germinated some beans (great home school project) and then planted them in pots so they could grow a little bigger to stick through the holes too. Finally after 2 weeks of waiting for them to get big enough we were able to now plant our tomatoes and beans upside down. We covered them with soil and planted a few other vegetables up top right side up. This was such a long patient project that seemed to be producing to results we took the other planter back. I told my mother just buy what you need when you need it. You will be happier. But now over a month into it and after still many unplanned struggles we are seeing a little bit of growth as we too are still buying all are food at the market.

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My husband also planted this line of peppers. All sorts hot, mild, long, colorful, worldly, and they all look the same. Little stubby stems with leaves. He planted 3 tomato plants at the end with little faith in our upside down ones.

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We are trying yes, succeeding will see. Maybe by the end of summer we will actually have a home grown salad.

If Rodger does not get it first!

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