Why my pea's are stomping balls.

OK now these are my pea's, I believe they are Oregon Sugar pod II, and Avalanche Snow Pea.. there might even be some Pole Cascadia Sugar Snap peas in there.  You see sometimes in a planting frenzy it's more important to get the food in the ground than to make labels... and if you do make labels make sure you don't use your children's water soluble markers to do it.

Of course in a perfect world one would want to know what is what so they could properly assess yields to maximize harvests, but let's face it, perfect worlds are like mirages, they seem more perfect from a distance and then the more you know about them the less perfect they become.

Let's not slip into philosophy just yet... we shall get there after a couple more beers, right now we need to set the stage.  A lot of people at the Mt. Tabor Community garden have commented on how well my pea's are doing, and they want to know what my secret is... Hot damn! Talk about pitching one down the old pepper (baseball analogy in where the pitcher throws and easy home run ball to the batter).

How did i do it?

1) started early
2) brought in a yard of fine white lightning planting soil (from dean innovation)
3) i show up every day and soak the soil

You see these plots have a lot of clay, which turns hard as a rock and becomes impermeable to water... so you want your clay below but a good layer of rich organic soil above.  The more great soil you have the better... it just cost's money.  For the record i don't think it's cool to take the mulch they have for the outside garden beds for your own plot.  True there wasn't a lot of great soil in these plots to begin with, but they are great plots and one should focus on that.  You have a plot of great sun exposure, with unlimited and easy water access... all the tools are there.    I say that because i have heard grumblings about these things and i encourage people to focus on the good that you do have and not what you are missing.

Another quick note...  A few people have mentioned that they have read updates from this blog, and there is a mild fear that their garden might get ridiculed given the nature in which this blog is written.  The way i see it, if you have a garden you are doing good...  the mantra when i began this years ago was "gardening is not a competition, but if it can be turned into one to create greater yield then do it".

I mean that in the most positive way, and i am a huge fan of comedy, the idea of trash talking, and attempting to motivate others through casual threats... well i just find it funny.   I met a nice woman in the garden tonight who asked me about my peas and why mine were doing better than hers, so i basically told her the 3 steps i mentioned above, and she said she wasn't good at gardening.

I disagree, she is good at gardening, she is there doing it and she is asking direct questions... i believe she is very good at gardening, just not very experienced.  The key thing is getting the answers to the questions that come to mind and then of course remembering and taking action.

I was gardening by the time i could walk, my father was a gardener who believed that son's are had to be labourors (Canadian spelling EH!).  Dad was a production gardener, a graduate from the Ontario Agriculture College.. it was all about maximizing the yield.  But now that I'm an adult i realize too that it is also about a happy place.  For the small garden you can spend a lot of money on soil, seeds, trellis equipment, time... you name it.  In the end you might just break even, but to me it's like a religion, you put in your practice, observe, react and are given your reward with which you can do what you can choose with.  You can share it, store it, darn well better eat it. 

OK enough of this nice talk... don't be a wimp, get in there and garden.  I was actually going to tar and feather my buddy Josh a week ago in this blog... he had yet to do anything in his garden, and i felt he needed some motivation.  In fact i actually photographed my garden and his garden and was set to go to town in a satirical blog post ridiculing his garden, or lack there of... but i checked my swing,... i did threatened him outside Glencoe Elementary school one day when we picked up our children that i was going to write a blog about his no existent garden.  Let's just say he had nervous eyes and tried to explain that they did in fact have a plan... well it turns out that he did, in fact there was even a backup copy of the plan... his garden looks great now, and provided he doesn't slack off on the weeding and watering he should be in great shape.    I'm glad i held back, even though i had some good zingers lined up... perhaps the idea that my threats helped motivate his planting, maybe the did, maybe they didn't, but i did see fear in his eyes as he laughed nervously.

Check this broccoli out:

I started it indoors in February in my kitchen under a florescent light... now the thing is you have to keep an eye on these guys... don't let them come close to flowering.  Just cut the broccoli head off and it will continue to produce all season long.  This one is not ready to be harvested, but that;s the thing about going to the garden every day, i go 2x a day, but I'm pro remember (remember comedy).   Now if you go and water an weed every day then you notice what is happening, you are able to correct your problem before it become a problem.  Like my buddy Josh who's basil is taking a big hit on the slug front, holes all over the leaves and all... the way i see it, well its quarter to midnight at this time... Josh should be in the garden with a headlight bumping off slugs right now... perhaps i should call him now and remind him.  Well that didn't go too well, i guess they were sleeping after a hard day... there was definite confusion over the urgency of the situation with regard to the urgency of slug counter attacks.

Now since I'm on a roll, let me tell you about the importance of regular garden worship.  Check out this plant:

It is a broccoli started at the same time as the earlier broccoli posted.  What happened?  Well it turned out one day i went to the garden and that plant had been pulled out of the ground, and way lying there in peril.  Who knows what happened,  maybe a kid, maybe and animal, maybe a malicious bastard... it doesn't matter, it happens, the good thing was that i was there to put it back in the ground and to pinch off the big leaves (to save on water loss), and i think the plant will survive and thrive in the future.   But this is clearly a result of my devout gardening practice... I appeared when my plant needed me, or you could argue i needed my plants... lets just say we were there for each other, as any fine religion should be... it was fate so to say.

When i was in a community garden in Vancouver Canada, we had a local group that had a plot... let's just say that that it was a group of non gardeners with a pack of unsupervised children who ran amok in the garden over every bodies plots... it was a total disaster, and they ended up being kicked out of the garden, but not before i got a song out of it.  You see when things attack my garden, i go bananas, hence the squirrel theme for the past year, but that has been solved thankfully.  So i tried to build a "security fence" around my garden to keep these children from tromping on my plants and in the end i took one king hell gash on my left shin from a piece of angle iron i  drove into the ground to hold up the "security fence", so in the end i did it to myself: Sung by Genny Trigo...

The real comedy here is that i gave this album to my neighbour John who's hacksaw i dulled up cutting the angle iron... not sure if he ever listened, or if he did he catch the acknowledgement.  Anyhoo, I thought it was funny.

One last thing... i noticed in the community plots tonight that in the communal herb garden somehow we had planted lemon balm and mint, two things that were on the "do not plant in the garden list", the reason for this is that they will take over and you will spend years trying to eradicate from the garden. I was going to bump them off, but since I am not actually the king around here, besides in my own mind (comedy people)  i will wait a few days until consulting.

OK i have to kill slugs now.