Garden Update

Phase I of the 2011 garden has been in the ground for a few weeks and is coming along...slowly. The onions, while alive, do not appear to be growing quickly. And I had given the potatoes up for dead a few days ago until I went digging and found one with a sprout. Oops! I let the rest go and lo and behold, today I saw one peeking through the soil.

We haven't had much rain this month, and I'm not ready to empty my pockets to water the garden yet (I save that particular bill-opening heart attack for the blistering month of July).

I have another issue with the garden, though:

Errant baby squash!

I mentioned last month that I'm a big fan of composting. I'm also a fan of:

- Plans

- Order

- Symmetry

Errant baby squash do not fit in my gardening plans. Turns out I may have jumped the gun on my compost, and some (O.K., probably a lot) of stuff wasn't adequately decomposed (you know, like Beethoven! Ba dum, bum). So I've got unidentified, random squash plants popping up everywhere!

They are cute, though.

I don't know if it's acorn squash, butternut squash, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash...I sound like the Bubba Gump of squash consumption.

The problem is that I wanted to do some more work on the (apparently quite fine) soil that the plants are growing in. I guess I'll try to pick the hardiest looking ones and transplant them into nice, neat, OCD-pleasing rows when I'm ready.

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Yesterday at the grocery store I decided to skip the herb section in the produce department and instead picked some up in the garden center. Do you get as annoyed as I do at paying $2.88 for a tiny box of rosemary that I never end up using before it goes bad?

Here's the solution to that problem: buy a $2.50 rosemary bush and stick that sucker in your front garden bed. You'll have all the rosemary you'll ever want, whenever you want it. And it won't go bad in your fridge!

If you don't have a garden, buy a pot or two and some dirt, and skip the herb section all summer long. Really, I can't encourage you enough to buy a few herbs this year to use in your summer cooking. There is something really satisfying about needing something for a recipe, wandering outside with your scissors and cutting some, and then returning to your kitchen to continue cooking.

Last year Zach made me a planter for chives, basil, and cilantro. My basil plant went nuts, but I ended up pulling it up in the fall because I bought the wrong kind of basil...I like the one with the big, wrinkly leaves, but this plant had small ones. So I fixed that this year! The chives and cilantro came back all by themselves.

Chives on the left, basil in the middle, cilantro on the right.

Rosemary

I also picked up a few bell pepper plants and a red pepper plant. It drives me nuts to spend $1.50 per bell pepper (more for a red one!). Four bell pepper plants cost me $2.50, so all I've got to do is get them to grow two peppers and I've got my money back. I put three of the pepper plants in pots so I can baby them. The other two got stuck in the garden to fend for themselves (sorry, pepper plants! Good luck with the rabbits!).

The kids and I had a blast planting yesterday, and Drew is a very attentive gardener. He likes to water them and reminds me to do it every day.

I already used some of the rosemary last night for roasted root vegetables. And I didn't have any left over to rot in my fridge!

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Workout of the Day

P90X One on One Volume 3: Yoga MC2

I think I've said this before, but if you like yoga, this is a great workout. It's a bit more than an hour, but it goes fast.