March 2019 – Andrea's Garden Journal

March 20, 2019

3/20/2019

Hello Spring! This fig tree is quite the tease, tantalizing me with fruit that won’t ripen for another few months!

Happy 1st Day of Spring!

It’s been a busy week. Still recovering from bronchitis and fighting allergies – hello Spring?!? Despite the illness, the teaching, and the symphony set I’m frantically preparing for, I’ve been getting my daily dose of garden therapy. My goal has been to pull a minimum of one 5 gallon bucket of weeds a day. The ground is still wet from all of our rain so it’s been painless to meet my goal. In fact, I’ve been pulling quite a bit more than that. This is a good thing. With all of the rain, then warm, sunny days, then rainy days, then more warmth and sun, the weeds have been growing like gangbusters! I’m itching to get some veggies in but other than transplanting a few celery starts (celery self-sows itself all over my yard), I haven’t done much of that yet. Next week is another week! In the meantime, HAPPY SPRING!

March 12, 2019August 30, 2020

The Perennial Tomato?

Bronchitis has really set me back this year. My garden is progressing but at a snail’s pace. I spent a few minutes this morning, which is all I had energy for, cleaning up a small area of the raised beds. I went to pull up what I thought was a dead tomato and found life! The beds are on the South side of the house against a stucco wall. And while we had a really wet winter, I didn’t think of it as being particularly mild. Apparently it was!

I think this may be an Early Girl from the nursery, which I planted late in the season after my heirloom roma tomatoes developed a blight and had to be pulled out. And while Early Girls are not the tastiest, biggest, or sauciest tomatoes available, they are blight resistant, which is the only reason to reach for a hybrid, in my opinion. I would love to do my part in the world of the home gardener and help develop a blight resistant heirloom but when your planting areas are measured in inches instead of acres, you can only do what you can do. In any event, this plant is my experiment! I planted it fairly deep – about 8″ – covering up the the bottom sets of leaves and only leaving a few sets higher up above ground. We’ll see what happens!

My “perennial” tomato experiment – surrounded by an army of garlic chives I thinned from another bed!

Update:

My “perennial” tomato produced for another full season. It turned out to be a cherry tomato and, like most cherry tomatoes, was quite prolific! Unfortunately, it didn’t make it through this past winter. I carefully examined it for signs of life before pulling it out in late April 2020.

March 8, 2019

3/8/2019

What plans I had . . .

I just needed to get through a particularly grueling work week. Did it, yay! Got up the next morning, went off to my one obligation of the day, came home an hour later with a throbbing headache. Things went downhill from there. Fever, chills, chest congestion, you know, all the fun stuff. Bronchitis. Good times.

Spent 5 days trying not to drown in phlegm, watching old movies, and being absolutely worthless. I was so looking forward to getting a few things done in the garden but didn’t happen at all. The one thing I did harvest regularly and enjoy was my mint. Mint is wonderful for things like nasal congestion, headaches, and muscle spasms – all things I got to experience! I normally use peppermint for this purpose but it is only March and my peppermint is still mostly dormant. It’s just now starting to send out leaves. But for some reason, my spearmint, planted in the same area, never went dormant this year. So, lots and lots of spearmint tea loaded with local honey was consumed this week. It helped immensely with the sore throat and helped clear my sinuses. I think I still prefer the taste of peppermint but for medicinal purposes, the spearmint did just fine!