Domestiphobia

Holy smokes.  I meant to post something yesterday.  I really did.  But I was suckered talked into attending my 1-year-old neighbor’s birthday party, and it was exhausting!  I mean, passed-out-cold-by-nine-o’clock exhausted.  Oh, and I think the birthday girl was tired too.

It’s events like those that make me wonder more and more whether I’d ever be cut out to be a parent.  I have to admit that the kids were kind of cute, in an oh-you’re-so-adorable-as-long-as-I-can-give-you-back-to-your-mommy kind of way.  There were even brand new, baby twins.

Yikes!

But as cute as little baby footsie-wootsies are, I promised you something useful today, didn’t I?

My raised garden bed post from last week generated a couple questions about the specifics, so I thought I’d share the nitty-gritty of how we planned out our bed.

Like most of our projects, we took our planning and research to about 80% and winged the rest.

First off, I knew we would not be creating a nice little row garden.  Rows and rows of tidy plantings just aren’t my style.  Plus, I knew it would drive me batty if even one was slightly out of alignment.  Is that crazy?  No?  Whew.

So I did a little research and realized that what I wanted was a “kitchen garden,” or potager, in fancy French terms.  The purpose of a kitchen garden is to create something that’s both edible and aesthetically pleasing.  They typically contain a mixture of vegetables, herbs and flowers – and maybe even a berry bush or two.

The part I love is that they can be a mess.  A lovely, purposeful mess that will hopefully look intentional.  Like the tousled bed-head look.  I want a tousled bed-head garden.

Once I decided on the type of garden we would be planting, my research led me to the concept of companion planting.  Even though I admittedly know very little about gardening, I was aware of the fact that certain plants might not be friendly neighbors.  So I did a little online research and came up with some lists to reference while we planted, as well as some other helpful tips.

GOOD NEIGHBORS

• Tomatoes & Parsley
• Tomatoes & Carrots, Onions, or Asparagus
• Carrots & Peas & Lettuce
• Lettuce & Carrots, Radish, Strawberries, or Cucumber
• Strawberries & Spinach
• Spinach & Cabbage
• Peas & Beans
• Potatoes & Cabbage Family (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts)
• Carrots & Onions, Leeks or Shallots

BAD NEIGHBORS

• Tomatoes & Cabbage Family (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts)
• Tomatoes & Potatoes
• Onions & Peas or Beans
• Cabbage & Strawberries
• Sunflowers & Potatoes
• Tomatoes & Corn
• Beans & Onions, Leeks, Shallots
• Sunflower & Lettuce

Sounds like it could get a little complicated, right?

But our approach was fairly simple.

1.  We made a list of plants we wanted (or thought we wanted) to try and took it to the nursery.

2.  We bought what was available from our list (our only real disappointment was strawberries – but apparently we didn’t care enough to look elsewhere).

3.  We laid the seedlings out in our garden and consulted our companion plant list to ensure we wouldn’t have any un-neighborly squabbles.

There is a row of companion-friendly flowers and herbs (Nasturdium, Alyssum, Marigolds, Zinnias, Basil, Thyme, Sage, Rosemary, Cilantro, Oregano) along the front and sides in an attempt to ward off any unwelcome 6-legged visitors.

We have lots of greens (Romaine lettuce, Iceberg Lettuce, and Arugula), as is customary with a kitchen garden.  We wanted spinach, but alas, no luck.

We’ve got some parsley near the tomatoes…

…and cucumber near the lettuce.

The beans are separated from the leeks by the row of tomatoes.

And like I mentioned in the first garden post, the rhubarb is kept separate so we can keep it out of the dogs’ reach.

What is rhubarb, anyway?  It weirds me out.  The hubs wanted it because his dad used to grow it, and he insists he can make a killer rhubarb pie.  I don’t know how I feel about that.  Rhubarb pie?  It just doesn’t have the same ring as “chocolate peanut butter pie,” does it?

So as you can see, this really is just one big experiment.  The plants seem relatively happy so far, but we’re all still getting used to each other.

I guess we’ll see what happens when they stop being polite, and start getting real.

Oh, and I should mention that this site was particularly helpful with layout suggestions.

Would I do anything different next year?

• Find some clipping flowers (flowers that would work well to clip for indoor bouquets) to add to the garden.
• Maybe try growing a few things from seeds.
• Add strawberries and spinach.
• Plant something viney that needs a pretty trellis.

So how are your gardens coming along this year?  Or maybe you just have a small container or two?  Am I clearly doing something wrong with mine?

We need all the help we can get.

Guess what we did last weekend?

Hint:  It does not involve buying/building/painting/refinishing/refurbishing or otherwise concocting some type of giant, lime-green adirondack chair.

It does, however, involve me, the hubs, and a visit to a plant nursery – three things that have never before come together in the history of existence.

My thumbs are so black, I used to believe that a greenhouse would implode if I walked within 10 feet of one.

My thumbs are so black, plants usually commit suicide around me.  (Who said that?  Carrie Bradshaw?  It doesn’t count if she’s not a real person.)

Yo’ mama’s so fat… okay, we won’t go there.

The point is, I visited a nursery last weekend for the first time since the $100 worth of shrubs (count ‘em – five shrubs) I bought when we first moved in shriveled up and died in a way that eerily resembled the way the knight died at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It was bad.

But let me start at the beginning.  I got it in my head about a year ago that we needed to build a raised vegetable garden in our back yard (it gets the most sun).  I tried growing some herbs and bell peppers in pots on our deck last year, and they did surprisingly well until our dogs knocked them over and enjoyed most of the “fruits of my labor,” so to speak.

And after I read the how-to instructions on Pioneer Woman’s site, I just knew we could do this ourselves (build the bed, that is – I have no idea whether the plants will actually live).  The project involved wood and tools, so the hubs was all over this one.

(If you’re noticing the shirt, yes, I married a geek.  But he’s the hot brand of geek so it’s okay.)

There was a bit of cutting, digging, and drilling involved.

Mara was exhausted.

But in the end (~$60 worth of pine and $140 worth of soil – you can see, our yard is all sand so we couldn’t use that), we had a real beauty of a raised bed.  Bow-chica-wow-wow.

It was strategically located near our fugly-but-cheap rain barrel.

Next, it was time for a visit to Big Bloomer’s Flower Farm for some expert advice in plant-purchasing and a rest in the giant adirondack chair.

They had row upon row upon row…

…of verdant goodness.

Now if only I can keep it that way.

We ended up buying way too many plants for our 4′ x 8′ bed.  I decided to go with a mixed garden of flowers, vegetables and herbs.  The resulting purchase was something like this:

• Beans
• Red and Green Bell Peppers
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Grape Tomatoes
• Iceberg Lettuce (purchased elsewhere)
• Romaine Lettuce (purchased elsewhere)
• Arugula (purchased elsewhere)
• Rhubarb*
• Leeks
• Cucumber
• Nasturdium (flower)
• Alyssum (flower)
• Marigolds (flower)
• Zinnias (flower)
• Sunflower seeds
• Basil
• Thyme
• Sage
• Rosemary
• Cilantro
• Oregano

*The rhubarb is being grown in a separate pot out of the dogs’ reach.  Rhubarb is poisonous to dogs, so take precautions and make sure you consult a toxic plant list for canines if you grow your own garden in a yard with dogs!

Quite an impressive list, eh?  We also had some squash and cantalope that we ended up planting elsewhere in the yard because it absolutely didn’t fit in the garden.  We’re going to plant the sunflower seeds somewhere else as well.

We laid everything out to see how it would fit before we planted  (the magic marker was used to mark the edges of the bed in 1′ increments).

IF (and that’s a huge “if”) everything grows as it should, our little bed will be extremely crowded.  But for now it looks like this:

So now we just water and wait, right?  A friend who actually knows how to garden told me I need to give the plants food.  I thought all they needed was water…?  Ha.  I will probably look for some plant food today during my lunch break.

Can you imagine the face of the guy at McDonald’s when I walk up and ask for some plant food?

It’ll be a hoot.

So I guess we’ll see if our visit to Big Bloomer’s was worth it.  Maybe adding more fresh veggies to my diet will make my own bloomers a bit smaller.  (Was that joke too obvious?  It’s okay… you can tell me.)

I’ll admit that it was the giant adirondack chair that lured us to this particular plant nursery.  How could we resist?

*See this post for even more details about our small garden.