(This is my first diary entry here, and it should probably be all political and everything; I know, I know. But no, I just had to do this. sigh It'll be the Spring Equinox day after tomorrow, so.... well. Y'all forgive me, I'll get serious eventually.)
"See, it all started with just a few small plots. I mean, just a few little herbs; nothing wrong with a little green, right? So I did a little Mexican Santolina, some English Thyme, a little Dittany Of Crete and Catnip and Lemon-Balm and Garden Sage... That was several years ago, and every now and then I'd have to add a few plants, and hey, I even let the herb garden lie fallow for a couple of summers, so it wasn't anything like an addiction, right?"
"...right... And the two little ornamental ponds I put in, well-- they were just, I mean-- I thought they were okay. All the cool people were doing it."
"And when I started a corner garden last year and turned the empty space along the fence into a raised bed full of flowers and tomato plants, so what? It wasn't like I was buying paraphernalia, was it? So I had a few illegal Morning Glory seeds shipped in, what was wrong with that? --okay, a few more than a FEW, I guess. Big deal. I could stop any time I wanted."
"And-- and then I found out about Moulin Rouge sunflowers. And I got a few seeds off of eBay-- maybe legal, maybe not, I didn't care. And after that I got experimental; I just had to try out Mammoth Greystripe and Teddybear and all the others, and... You find out places you can get the stuff, new varieties, you know? And it just gets worse and worse. And when you come in to work the next day with your eyes all gritty from staring at seed websites and dirt under your fingernails and smelling like compost, people just look the other way, you know?"
"And now... I went out in the backyard and did a couple of packs of seeds this morning. Not the whole packs, just half of each; but I'm getting four more varieties in the mail. And when they get here I know I just won't be able to help myself, dammit, they're so-- one've 'em's a dwarf variety, for gods' sakes, now I'm getting into the hard stuff! Exotics! Next thing I'll be buying Italian Whites and I'll end up in an alley wearing dirt-stained overalls and panhandling for fertilizer. What lengths will I go to to support my sunflower habit? I need help."
"And... and that's why I'm here tonight, at Gardeners Anonymous." sits down*
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Sigh. I need to stay away from places like Swallowtail Garden Seeds and Richter's; my yard's pretty small. But maaaaan, it's going to look SO PRETTY. I wonder if there're any new Morning Glory seeds up on eBay yet?
I live out west in Arizona. It gets damn hot here-- I've seen it hit 116F-- but we have beautiful springs and falls, and it bothers me that people don't grow more veggies in their gardens. It's no big thing to adjunct the soil and water responsibly; my apartment complex has a policy of water-saving (no washing cars on the grounds, no water-wastage, $50 fine for irresponsible misuse) and I know that you water your gardens in the early morning and late evening to keep evaporation down. You put up shading to keep things cool, you lay down mulch and raked leaves to keep the roots from getting hot. It's not that hard, and if you're stuck in a place with no yard and just a balcony, you can grow in pots-- hell, container growing's easy and cheap, you don't even have to buy a container if you don't want to. You can cut away the top of a plastic soil-bag, poke some holes for drainage, and plant straight into the bag if you want.
You can grow peppers, beans, corn and a lot of other stuff that's climate-correct for the area. Some herbs that should by no sane reason do well out here go absolutely ballistic in the Arizona sun-- basil, which should wilt into withered springs of deadness, goes completely batshit in this climate; I've seen 4-foot-tall basil plants. Peppers, especially some of the local native varieties, will grow in the most horrible unadjuncted soil imaginable. Anybody who's ever visited their local Native Seed Search knows about the first nations Three Sisters method of growing (corn, beans and squash-- you plant them in a single mound, and the corn gives the beans something to climb and the squash below the stalks are shaded by the corn); but so few people grow their own veggies, event though they could.
I've grown herbs and tomatoes and squash for ages; this year I'm branching out and adding Anasazi beans, something I grew about five years ago, and maybe some pole-beans as well. I plan on trying to replace as much of my store-bought produce with my own home-grown stuff this year-- we'll see how it goes. The sunflowers'll produce seeds for eating (especially the Mammoth Greystripe) and to feed the local bird population as well as a crop for salad sprouts-- if you haven't tried sunflower sprouts in a salad, you're missing out.
In a month or so, I'll post an update on how the garden's going and if my tomatoes are bearing. In the meantime, it's beautiful and balmy out, the sun's shining, the desert's in its first flush of spring, and it's time to plant.
I'll try for something political next diary entry, okay? Happy Spring a couple days early, everybody.