Chapter 16 - Salad!

It's been a long time since my last post, but things in the garden have been progressing very nicely! I'm happy to report that nearly everything (with the possible exception of Luigi) is doing very well. Some hot weather two weeks ago helped a lot, and the kale and lettuce are huge. Not to mention the epazote...I have too much epazote and I don't even know what to do with it, so if you want any, let me know!

So anyhow, this past Monday, after coming back from a long weekend in Big Sur, I picked some lettuce from the garden and made my first salad - also threw in some fresh Bing cherries from Monterrey, some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, shaved Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper. It was really really excellent.

There have been some other great developments, and there's more to report on, but I'll save that for another chapter when I have more time. Here are some more recent pictures of the garden, as well as pictures of my salad!


A morning in the garden.


The woodwinds with some lettuce.


Epazote, basil, mint, lettuce, pepper, oregano, marigold, chives.


My first garden salad.


Me eating my first salad.

Chapter 15 -Additions to the Family

First of all, did you know that when you click the pictures in my blog, they pop up super super big? It's a bit intense. You can see the little water droplets on the various vegetables.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to the Alemany farmer's market with Jess and Maria. After purchasing vegetables, discussing strawberries with the singing strawberry vendor, and eating some chicharron pupusas and sweet tamales, we went to buy some herbs! Maria picked me out a nice looking sweet basil plant, and meanwhile Jess and I chose a big pot of spearmint. We carried them back to my house on the Number 9 bus, and then I left the plants in my living room until today.



Today I got a City Car Share car and bought three of the biodegradable pots that I am using for the tomatoes. For the herbs I got the smaller 8x8 size. While at the checkout at the garden store, I started talking to another woman about the recycled paper pots, and she ended up going to buy one too! She's going to plant carrots.

Anyway, I eventually came home and did a bit of planting. The mint (which cost 4 dollars) was big enough to separate into two different pots, and the basil went in the third pot.




The basil is going to be named Jessica, since she helped me carry it back to my house and there are no plants named after her yet!




The mint that is next to Jessica is called Mojito.




Jessica and Mojito are positioned between two of the drawers.




Here is a close-up shot of Mojito.



Meanwhile, the other mint plant is named Julep. Julep is between the other two drawers, near the woodwind section. Notice in this picture that the woodwind section is starting to get big!


Here's Julep and the woodwinds from another angle.



Meanwhile, inside my house, the dino kale is doing well! Almost all of the seeds germinated and sprouted - the leaves that are visible now don't look like kale yet, but the next round of leaves will! Once those are up and starting to get big, it will be time to transplant! In the meantime, I need to find some more dresser drawers.



At the garden store I also bought some wooden stakes (29 cents each). Maria has one, as does Colleen. (Cigarette is looking great in the corner!)



I broke the other stake in half and put it next to Luigi, so he can climb up the stake once he gets bigger.

That's about all for now! This concludes the fifteenth chapter - things are going well. There's some warm weather coming this week, so hopefully that will be helpful for the garden.