So I've moved from a Zone 4 to a Zone 8.
For those of you who don't garden, contemplate that in a Zone 4 you have a 66-day growing season, which means that "eating locally" in Montana in March means "beef and wheat". In Texas, people are already taking seedlings out of the greenhouse and there hasn't been a frost for like a month. So, having bumped up by 4 zones, I am starting (most illogically) to think about container gardening on my patio.
Not raised beds in the backyard. Not yet. Let's get Littleman walking around on his own little toes and Buddy potty-trained before we get on THAT crazy train.
Anyway, I am also thinking about edible landscaping and putting some of the prettier types of food-bearing plants (i.e., nastursiums, herbs, strawberries, curly-leaf kale, etc.) by my mailbox, which is the only one in the neighborhood unadorned with something like pansies or a ceramic goose or a patriotic sign. It looks lonely, and like it feels shunned by the cooler mailboxes. Also, the landscaping in the front yard is still tiny and you can see the seams of the sod. (New house.) So, my plan is to put some sort of interesting, self-watering planter beside my mailbox and fill it full of deceptively beautiful but edible stuff. That way not only will I be learning about gardening here in the land of rain and warmth, but I will also not worry that a wandering neighbor kid will munch on a more traditional, toxic cottage garden plant, like foxglove. I don't really think a kid would take a bite of curly-leaf kale, but I don't mind losing a few cherry tomatoes to the cause, either.
What do you think? Am I nuts? Or just getting the March Tomato-Crazies as a hangover from my life in a cold climate?*
Cheers,
Breanna
*If you don't know, the March Tomato-Crazies are what you get when the seed catelogues start arriving while there's a foot of snow on the ground and pale, soapy-tasting imitation tomatoes on the shelf at the grocery store, costing only a few ingots of gold apiece. You start wanting fresh tomatoes. A lot. But you can't have them... so you buy plants like a fool at the garden store as soon as they appear, regardless of the fact that you have a 66-day season.
For those of you who don't garden, contemplate that in a Zone 4 you have a 66-day growing season, which means that "eating locally" in Montana in March means "beef and wheat". In Texas, people are already taking seedlings out of the greenhouse and there hasn't been a frost for like a month. So, having bumped up by 4 zones, I am starting (most illogically) to think about container gardening on my patio.
Not raised beds in the backyard. Not yet. Let's get Littleman walking around on his own little toes and Buddy potty-trained before we get on THAT crazy train.
Anyway, I am also thinking about edible landscaping and putting some of the prettier types of food-bearing plants (i.e., nastursiums, herbs, strawberries, curly-leaf kale, etc.) by my mailbox, which is the only one in the neighborhood unadorned with something like pansies or a ceramic goose or a patriotic sign. It looks lonely, and like it feels shunned by the cooler mailboxes. Also, the landscaping in the front yard is still tiny and you can see the seams of the sod. (New house.) So, my plan is to put some sort of interesting, self-watering planter beside my mailbox and fill it full of deceptively beautiful but edible stuff. That way not only will I be learning about gardening here in the land of rain and warmth, but I will also not worry that a wandering neighbor kid will munch on a more traditional, toxic cottage garden plant, like foxglove. I don't really think a kid would take a bite of curly-leaf kale, but I don't mind losing a few cherry tomatoes to the cause, either.
What do you think? Am I nuts? Or just getting the March Tomato-Crazies as a hangover from my life in a cold climate?*
Cheers,
Breanna
*If you don't know, the March Tomato-Crazies are what you get when the seed catelogues start arriving while there's a foot of snow on the ground and pale, soapy-tasting imitation tomatoes on the shelf at the grocery store, costing only a few ingots of gold apiece. You start wanting fresh tomatoes. A lot. But you can't have them... so you buy plants like a fool at the garden store as soon as they appear, regardless of the fact that you have a 66-day season.
1 comment:
The only time it mught be good news to move from size 4 to size 8!
Miss you all, Love, Dad
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