Signs appear to be working too!
Growth in nearly every square I planted in! Here is a closer look:
And on the other side:
Logistical Updates - I've been watering the garden roughly every other day to every third day. We've been fortunate enough to have rain every couple of days and temperatures up in the 90+ range. Makes for very rapid germination, it looks like. Unfortunately, conditions aren't just perfect for vegetables.
If you noticed the white whispy fluff on some of the early pictures, those are dogwood seeds completely covering the garden. Looks like tons of them took root, and I've now got hundreds of little sprouts of trees coming in. There's a massive dogwood just upwind, and my garden took the brunt of it. At this point, there's not much I can do, short of meticulously pulling each and every one of them. Seeing as they're barely big enough to get a grip on, I'm going to give them a day or two to get big enough to get a hold of, and then eliminate them all.
In more personal news, I'm discovering that this gardening thing is significantly more widespread than I'd ever imagined. Everyone I talk to either has gardening stories from people they know, or have gardens themselves. News articles every day discuss the rise of urban gardening and sustainable lifestyles. Now, historically, I've been at least recreationally hostile to gardeners and people who even just have a large number of vegetables in their diets. I am now and have always been a carnivore, and really haven't been a fan of vegetables. That said, I'm coming around on this. Food you cook for yourself tastes better than food you get at a restaurant. That only intensifies if it's something you've grown for yourself. It is therapeutic and calming.
Even more, I find myself less stressed and more relaxed lately. Historically, I've always been a little high strung, worrying about major global issues, both political and economic. I look at these massive problems out there, and fear for what's going to happen. Hyper-sensationalized drama, ultra-partisan politics, and apocalyptic economic collapses would start wreaking havoc with my imagination, and I couldn't find anything I could hang on to. But now I garden. Now I create life (such as it is). I have objectively improved my surroundings, and created things that are a net positive in the universal equation. These plants I grow, the food I create and the beauty that goes with it, I can present quite literally the fruits of my labors to my friends. The debt ceiling crisis is spiraling out of control right now, but my squash plants are starting to climb the cage I put in for them. Battle lines are being drawn in congress for next years presidential election, but rows of lettuce are coming up for next month's harvest. The government is breaking down, but this last week I watched my garden break through the soil and start to rise up. It is a pure and peaceful thing, and I've never really felt anything like that before.
I'm starting to toy with thoughts of a career change. Call me melodramatic, but I'm quite literally playing god outside. I've destroyed and created a bare patch of soil. Now, through my direct actions, life has appeared. Really, I can't imagine sitting at my cubicle at work filing expense reports and managing spreadsheets for much longer after this. It doesn't compare.
I just have one word.
ReplyDeleteHippy. /dance