Garlic Addition

After Sarah and I planted the garden on May 1, we excitedly shared our venture with everyone we talked to.  We received similar responses: "You planted HOW MANY tomato plants? 16?"  Apparently that's a lot.  We've been told 1 or 2 tomato plants can yield hundreds of tomatoes, so we're looking at thousands.  To tell you the truth, I am not worried...Sarah knows everyone on the planet (well so do I :) ), so I think there will be no shortage of tomato lovers with whom to share the products of our hard work.  Sarah still plans to put some herbs in a pot, and I still planned to plant garlic.  I learned that you plant the individual cloves, not the whole bulb.  In the picture, where you see the big mound of dirt freshly dug on the left of the garden, is where I planted 8 garlic cloves.  I'm very, very excited to have garlic later this year since I use lots of it in my cooking!  Gardening was particularly peaceful this day since Seamus was sleeping when we got out the car and happily napped the entire time I planted!  What a delightful baby.  Oh, this has nothing do do with gardening, but we went to the zoo with Meaghan on May 11 when it was 95 degrees, and this picture is too cute for me not to post. 

Our plants are growing!  I don't know my onion lingo, but something is already sprouting out of the ground where we planted the bulbs pretty deep ( I think 4-6").  The tomato plants are getting taller.  It continues to rain often in St. Louis, so hopefully that is keeping Nick and Sarah's watering workload low. 

Sunday Planting Day

Seamus and I met Sarah at her house at noon on Sunday, the plan being to first shop for our plants, till the soil/clay :), get soil from Carondelet Park with Sarah's brother, Mark's, help, then plant.  As usual, the forecast showed that rain was very likely, so we weren't sure how much we'd get done.  We consulted a great book of Sarah's, Square Foot Gardening, and made our list of vegetables to get at the store.  We left Seamus with Nick to watch NBA all day. 

We went to Home Depot, and while Sarah stood in line to rent a tiller, I got the plants: heirloom tomatoes and a few other tomato varieties (16 total), 16 basil plants, 3 types of onions, garlic, and 4 peppers (orange, jalapeno, red, and yellow).  

We got home and started tilling the garden area.  We didn't know how deep to go or really what we were doing, but we dove in and tried it.  We met Mark Farmer in the rain at Carondelet Park and filled 4 huge trash containers with soil/compost.  It was raining pretty hard on us!  Mark brought his adorable 2 month old puppy, Cocoa (Sarah insists Mark named her after a designer). 

When we returned to Sarah's, Mark tilled the 4'x12' garden area like it was nothing!  We combined all the Carondelet soil with what was already in the ground, and finally we were ready to plant!  The rain wasn't so bad by then.  Sarah and I then dug in and planted our vegetables. Here it is:

10 tomato plants closest to the fence,  the basil  on the right next to the shed, the other 6 tomato plants to the left of the basil, then a row of onions (purple, white, and yellow), and the 4 peppers in the front on the right.  We still have to plant the garlic; I found out it's better to plant the individual cloves, not the whole bulb like I did Sunday :) 

I love our garden!!  Can't wait to watch it grow and produce.  Yum.