When I moved down to the university, I didn't expect to do much gardening stuck in a dorm or in an apartment. However, I was blessed by sharing an apartment with a couple other girls and being the one with the balcony. One of my first purchases was planters for the patio. I added two strawberry plants and planted an Asian mesclun lettuce mix in one planter.
(The strawberry and lettuce planter. The pots that the strawberries came in were recycled to start red swiss chard.)
(A couple days later...)
Then my mom came to visit! She brought two 1/2 barrels that she had made from a pickle barrel and more seeds! I had helped her haul home four pickle barrels last spring to use for a rain barrel system that would include water from the roof. We already had 3-4 barrels and she realized over the summer that we didn't have enough space to really use that many. It was really fun seeing my mom and entertaining her for an afternoon. She thought it was fun seeing me play hostess. We spent most of the afternoon playing in the dirt. With great results...
While I live in the middle of a sandy patch, I'm actually in a great agricultural region with fabulous farmers markets so I planted accordingly. The seasons are different here so right now we're in the middle of "summer". It's been cool this year so I focused on starting my cool season crops. Each barrel is planted with lettuce and a row of snap peas. The two other planters are filled with snap peas. I also added a some Sweet Alyssum seeds to the planters to attract pollinators.
This last week, I started thinning... While I thinned I remembered the first book in the Boxcar Children Series. Henry, the oldest, takes a job thinning a woman's vegetable garden and gets permission to take the thinned plants back to the boxcar where his sister turns them into a soup.
My thinnings weren't suitable for a soup so turned them into a most delightful salad with some additions from the farmers markets...
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