Garden Fail

I have a habit of starting seeds for the garden and immediately leaving town for several days. This past February, I did this and my husband overwatered my seedlings, leaving me with moldy seed starting trays when I returned. Last week, I started my later-season crops and left the week-old seedling with my husband again... You guessed it, They died. This time, he underwatered them in an effort not to overwater. I hope I still have time to get them going before harvest!

FAIL

A Month of Greens

Since moving to Cincinnati, we were very excited to join a CSA (community supported agriculture). We joined Cedarmore Farm, an organic Amish farm located about an hour from us, that delivers its weekly boxes all over the city. Our CSA started the first week of May, while most of the others are just getting started. The first few weeks, the boxes were pretty light due to the crazy amount of rain we've had here in Ohio. One thing we could count on though... greens. Always greens. We like salad, but I'm not one of those people who can just eat it every day. Then there was the kale, chinese cabbage, and the past 2 weeks, swiss chard. I am not sure I've ever bought chard, but I intend to eat everything provided, every week. We've been trying out a lot of new recipes, which is fun, but haven't found many to add to our 'keepers' list. I'll have multiple opportunities to find a good chard recipe this week!! Chard galore!

Tonight's recipe was simple. I tossed sliced chard, shredded carrots, and red onion in a bit of water, covered it and cooked about 10 minutes. Mix a TON of feta in (b/c I love feta and figured it could help save what was looking like a possibly not-so-appetizing meal) and served over brown rice. It was not bad. It was also not a keeper. Maybe next time!

Garden Day

This year I started my first garden. Since we are househunting for our first 'home', I started with containers and planned to get them in the ground when we moved in. Our househunt has taken longer than we expected, so we are container-bound for the duration of the growing season at this point. My 'garden' has been keeping me busy with planting, repotting, watering, and loving. I started most of my plants from seed, and after 6 weeks we still have most of them. I was shocked because I have a brown thumb. I may be a biologist and nature lover, but I am not great with plants. I am really trying to keep these plants alive and seem to be succeeding... but today may be beginning of the downfall of my 24 organic Beefsteak tomato plants. I have been growing them under lights in our guest room for over a month and decided to start hardening off a few to see how they would do. I picked the four biggest plants to be the guinea pigs, while the other 20 or so remain under lights.

We'll see how they turn out. On a positive garden note, my cherry tomato plant has 2 baby tomatoes and my Tendergreen bush beans have tiny baby beans!

I have quite the little helper in the garden too!