Fighting entropy

Gardens are a lot of work. And mine, in particular, is continually attempting to return itself to something like a forest. A weedy forest. Cute wooden structures break down over time, and tree seedlings quickly threaten to take their place.

The compost bin my husband and I built in 2012 is still standing, amazingly. It leans a little bit, and the wooden posts are turning into compost, but the chicken wire cylinder is still upright and full of compost. I add all of our fruit and vegetable scraps to it regularly, as well as leaves from our yard when I start to clean up the garden every spring.

The compost bin in 2012

The compost bin in 2020.

Besides that, though, it's been a little neglected. Sure, if you're a dedicated composter, you'll turn your compost pile regularly with a shovel or pitchfork. But I'm lazy, and not really in a hurry. And, as I said, nature still will break things down over time, whether or not you turn your pile. It just takes a little longer. Since I did so little gardening last year, I didn't have much need for compost. Even when I am gardening, I probably produce more compost than I have use for.

So over time, all that rich, mature compost just sat at the bottom of the pile. I needed more soil to pile up over my potatoes, so I decided to substitute my compost in pinch. It's something in between soil and mulch, so I hoped it would serve the purpose well. When I tried to pull some out from the compost bin, though, I found something like tree roots had made themselves at home there. It was clear my compost was overdue for some attention. So I lifted up the chicken wire and went to town pulling out thick roots of all kinds. After that I took a shovel to the top and tried to break up and stir up the leaves and twigs I had added. It should be much happier now.

It looked like a tree was trying to grow UNDER the compost?

And more roots in the compost pile....

Much better!

Roots aside, I was still able to get two buckets of compost out of my pile, and covered up my potatoes as best as I could.

My compost is somewhere in between soil and mulch.

My little potato hill after adding compost to my potatoes

My next project was the mint bed. I wish I had gotten a before photo, but frequently I just notice things and start working on them and then only think about getting a photo when I'm halfway through. Basically, it didn't look like a mint bed anymore. It was mostly oak seedlings, oxalis, and other weeds. I was amazed to discover there was actually still mint growing in there when I looked closely.

This once was a raised bed full of spearmint...halfway done removing the weeds.

I thought I would just mow the whole thing down, but I was afraid the tree seedlings would find a way to grow back. (Also, there's a large ant pile living in there.) Since there actually was some mint in there, too, I decided to take a more surgical approach. I pulled up the oxalis by hand and used a shovel to dig up every tree seedling. With the mint roots being much more shallow than the oak roots, I thought it might survive the process. (And if not, oh well--I was ready to give up on all of it anyways.) When I finished, I gave the mint a good watering to help it through the trauma.

It's not pretty, but weeds are gone! Don't let that mint fool you--it could fill that entire bed by the end of the summer.

Weeds aren't the only thing flourishing in my garden, though! Can you believe how much my potatoes have grown since my last post? And my potatoes in the grow bag have grown into a small shrub! Even the chives are flowering this week.

Left to right: tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers, asaparagus

Potato bush

Chives in bloom

Planting complete...for now

In spite of the pollen trying to kill me, I finally finished planting my vegetable beds over the past two weekends.

Left to right: tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers, asparagus

The first weekend, all I had the energy for was to plant one lone zucchini plant (it's there next to the strawberry plant in front of the beans). I fortified my defenses against the allergies and planted the bell pepper plants a few days later. This past weekend I planted the tomatoes and two more rows of beans.

By the way, I know the wood around our raised beds is kind of falling apart, please don't judge. We had grand plans to redo them and make them sturdier this year, but that was before we had to limit our shopping trips and stay home due to a pandemic. So this year's motto is reuse and make do. The plants don't mind and still grow just fine.

The potatoes I planted in the ground finally got tall enough for me to cover them up--which meant I could move the pile of dirt back into the potato row, making room to plant the tomatoes.

The potatoes had gotten quite weedy--I must have established my beds at the perfect time for all that weed grass seed to sprout--but it was okay since I was going to be piling six inches of soil on top of the weeds. Potatoes live, weeds die. Problem solved!

I planted two varieties of tomatoes. I kind of lost my mind when I went plant shopping this year. I planted two of a cherry tomato variety called 'Sweet Million' that I've pretty sure I've grown in the past. The upside of cherry tomatoes is that they're very prolific and seem to get very few diseases or pests. The downside is that the plants get HUGE. If you had something tall enough for them to climb, they would get nine feet tall. I planted them on the ends of the row so they would have more room to spread out, and planted two 'Cherokee Purple' tomatoes in between. The upside of Cherokee Purple tomatoes (an heirloom variety) is that they are DELICIOUS. I love all fresh tomatoes, but Cherokee Purple is probably my current favorite for flavor. The downside is that they tend to get diseases and insects in my garden, so I don't get to harvest very many. Hopefully the two varieties will balance each other out.

My beans sprouted this past week! They like all the rain we've been getting. It's easy to tell the two varieties apart--the purple bush beans, 'Royal Burgundy', have purple stems, while the yellow bush bean plants are completely green.

The radishes are getting bigger! They've graduated from little tiny seedlings to have real leaves. So far, so good.

I picked my first strawberry of spring. It was tiny but full of flavor!

One flower coming into bloom this week: my 'Sunset Cutie' gaillardia that I planted last spring. This perennial seems to bloom all the way from April to December here in Georgia. It's drought tolerant and attracts butterflies, so it's a winner in my garden.

When Change is Good

Sometimes people are surprised to learn that I don't like change. Change is hard. And there have been a lot of changes to my life that are out of my control these past couple of weeks.

My garden, though, is a wonderful reminder that change doesn't have to be bad. During this time of year, my garden is changing constantly! I take daily walks to see what has sprouted, grown, or bloomed.

Like these potatoes. On the one hand, the potatoes in the ground still look like a pile of dirt. Fortunately, though, I planted some in a grow bag a week earlier, and they're giving me a run for my money. You would not believe how fast the plants are growing! I already need to cover them up with more soil.

Aaaaand, my asparagus crowns started sprouting! Isn't baby asparagus amazing and adorable?

First asparagus sprout

Asparagus sprout a few days later. That's what happens to asparagus if you don't pick it and eat it.

The radish seeds I planted last Monday emerged within a few days. They're looking quite healthy. If you like radishes and instant gratification, I highly recommend growing them. But if you live in Georgia plant them today. They don't like the heat. And be prepared to water them constantly. I didn't have a spot in my garden planned for them, but they don't take up much space. I just pulled up a small patch of weeds next to my lemon verbena and planted them there. In theory I should have radishes by the end of April.

Some of my flowers also came back into bloom this week.

Over the weekend I prepped my second veggie bed and planted bush beans. I chose a purple variety ('Royal Burgundy') and a yellow variety ('Goldilocks') because those have generally been more prolific for me than regular green bush beans. And they're prettier. A couple of years ago I had grand plans for a strawberry bed there, but most of the plants died (I learned a lot about growing strawberries in the process, though.) So that's why there's one lone strawberry plant in the middle of the bed. I didn't want to disturb it.

Fortunately it's not freezing this week, but we are getting one last cold snap before the warm weather is here to stay. After we start getting more consistent warm weather, then I'll plant my other heat-loving veggies like tomatoes and peppers.