hobby garden update: what's growing

Last year I posted this:

I’m gonna go ahead and say it is worth the countless hours and hundreds of dollars for this lil basket of carrots & lettuce. 🤣🥹🥲 With the picture below...

Hundreds of dollars and a lot of hard work got me 3 beautiful garden boxes filled with nutrient dense dirt, worms and potential. A hobby garden of my dreams, to keep my hands busy and my mind focused on something lovely.

Hobby gardening looks like this...

Planting seeds and hoping they grow. Planting seeds and nurturing them daily without knowing if they’ll grow. Planting seeds and spending countless hours measuring their progress and hoping you’ll get some fruits out of it.

And then there’s the blackberries... You spend days pruning back, to keep them under control and off of your house. Then 6 months later they are bushier and scarier than ever before...

Oh, the joys of the garden.

What's Growing & What's not.

This year I planted more, and learned more. But it's July and I'm still waiting for the bulk of my harvest.

Lettuce and carrots are spouted and are 8+ inches tall. I planted tomatoes a week too soon, and we had a bit of a frost, so they're growing but slowly.

My zucchini seeds I planted late on a whim, but they sprouted quickly and are already growing. I may need to thin these way back. The pumpkin starts I planted way in the far reaches that rarely get water are doing better than the ones in my crowded garden box - there's a lesson in that, I am sure!

Irises are bloomed and were so so beautiful, and now I've got some bright red bulbs and poppies making an appearance. Joe (the frog) is loving the parsley and flower pots I keep right next to the water spigot.

I can’t wait to pluck up the garlic and see how it did but needs a a week or two longer... Cabbage is looking a bit iffy after the attack of the pests a few weeks ago. But the peas did amazing - I was eating them nonstop for days and there's still more. I'm going to plant a second round soon for a fall harvest!

Lessons learned from the garden

an excerpt from In My Grandma Era,

A rich harvest. Sometimes our richest harvests are the things that we didn’t plan or plant. The blackberries I used to despise (for how they encroach on my house and fence) are now a source of joy and remembrance for me. 

Cut out what doesn’t serve you. My tomatoes taught me this. A garden fairy told me to cut off the branches that had little or no flowers on them. When I looked at my smallish tomato plants, I was scared to take her advice. That would be MOST of the branches! But I did it. And OH, how my tomatoes thrived. When it comes to vegetables, you want most of the energy to go to the fruit, so pruning it back really helps the plant to send its energy straight to the fruit and produce more and more and MORE! 

Timing is everything. In a hurry to make my garden look incredible, I planted everything at once, in the beginning of the season. Later, I learned that some vegetables need to be planted later in the season (when the nights are warmer) to thrive. While some crops do well in the early spring. I can still plant in batches, but knowing what the ‘cold crop’ and ‘warm crop’s are is super duper important to a successful harvest.

Ask the experts. Social media gurus may live in a different growing zone, so their information isn’t always what’s best for you. The experts you need live in your neighborhood, sell at farmers markets and work in the nurseries near you! Go for a walk and peek over people’s gates until you find a seasoned gardener near you, then ask for their advice. They are the experts you didn’t know you needed. And gardeners LOVE talking garden, trust me!

It’s about the process, as much as the outcome. Every morning of the summer, the first season I grew things, I woke up with the sun and put on my boots. I’d turn on the hose and fill my buckets of water. I’d make trips to the far reaches of my acre of land where my hose would not reach, to water my lettuce and rosebush. Then I’d re-fill the buckets and move to the bulbs and hanging baskets. Then, I’d pull the hose as far as it would stretch and water the rest of my garden. At the end of the day, I’d walk past my garden and see what was ready to harvest for dinner. The best I ever did was a few carrots, a handful of herbs, a bowl of cherry tomatoes, and some lettuce. But even on days where my harvest was a few cherry tomatoes, I started my day with fresh air, I ended my day with the fruits of my labors. What a simple pleasure it is, what a wholly satisfying way to enjoy a summer season.

What's growing in your garden? I'd love to know!

xo, Brooklyn