“You have to get up and plant the seed and see if it grows, but you can’t just wait around, you have to water it and take care of it.” ~ Bootsy Collins
It has been about a month since we planted our Flamingo Garden. In some way taking care of a garden is like taking care of an infant or a puppy or maybe less intensive than that. Ok, so it is like taking care of a baby goldfish. Yes – I think that analogy works the best. Every day I go outside to the garden to check on its progress, water it and assess the situation for other things I need to do in the garden. Literally every day I am astounded by how different the garden looks and how much things have grown literally over night. Like a baby goldfish (or just a baby – the analogy has gotten away from me) I have been tracking the progress of the garden each week and documenting it via pictures. Again I am THAT mom (ahem – I mean goldfish owner or maybe gardener?)…
We had our first “harvest” from the garden about a week after planting. It was one lone strawberry. Yes, I admit – this was kinda a cheat harvest. When we purchased the strawberry plants, we bought one that already had a baby strawberry attached. Throughout the week that strawberry went from green to a beautiful red. I am not sure how it tasted but small child really seemed to enjoy it.
During week 2 the seedlings really started to sprout up from the ground. I quickly saw that I completely overseeded the carrots and the cucumber plants. In fact – the carrots looked like chia-pet hair there were so many of them! After much internal debate and discussions with my CSA farmers, I knew what I had to do. It was time to thin out my crops. It was completely heart wrenching to pull out baby carrots and cucumber plants and I complained the entire time I was doing it.
Week 3 was an exciting week in the garden. Things were really starting to pop up and look strong. My baby plants were starting to look like miniature versions of their grown up selves! In fact I had to tie up the tomato plants more because they were growing so fast and frantic and I even had one large tomato growing on the plants with many other plants starting to have flowers!
That takes me to now – approximately 4 weeks after planting. The garden looks completely different than when we started this operation. My baby plants are literally starting to crawl! In fact, I had to modify my trellis system for the beans this past weekend to make it easier for the green beans to climb!
I can’t wait to see what the next month brings to the garden. Until then ~
Happy planting and eating!
~ The Gardening Dietitian
This certainly does require patience, but just like watching children or animals grow, the waiting, the patience only makes your love and appreciation of them more powerful….how couldn’t it when you invested so much in the process.
Beautiful!!
Wow… that’s great. I’ve been pretty amazed at how fast these things grow. I hope that you have a bountiful harvest!
Thanks so much! Fingers crossed it produces some great fruit and veggies for my family!