Still Going

I just thought I'd post to note that I have abandoned neither the garden nor the blog. I pulled in a handful of green tomatoes last week and yanked the vines. Decent tomato crop this year. I've still got one Chinese cabbage out in the east bed. No idea what to do with it. I have no plans to plant this winter. I keep telling my wife that the old sliding glass doors are there for my winter garden. One of these years she'll make me plant one or throw them out.

My oldest daughter is eighteen months and she walked around the garden on her own this weekend. I think by spring she may go out there with her watering can to help. When we go to the backyard she always wants to go to the garden ("gar-gar"). I've yanked the dead things except a few dried brown basil plants and the lone still-purple coneflower.

I have yet to improve the soil. Fatherhood has cut back my time with the garden. Composting is going well. I hope to run another batch of twigs through the chipper shredder soon. The shredded sticks and leaves have really jump-started the compost. Also, I've started putting more stuff in it besides kitchen scraps: used coffee filters (with grounds, of course), contents of the vacuum cleaner (bagless), dryer lint, and dog hair (beyond what comes out of the vacuum). I have even composted a few cloth diapers that have become too threadbare for diapering. I'm trying to find a better use for them, but the composting works.

I keep thinking I'll borrow my father-in-law's truck and get out to a stable one of these days, but more likely I'll have to order a few yards of manure. I just need to do it in the next two months.

Seed catalogs are here and I'm getting excited about all of the possibilities. I just have to remember to buy what we eat and keep the experimental stuff to a minimum. Maybe beets. We'll see.