Happy Mother's Day

"Here mama, take this!"

R and I have been spending a couple evenings a week at the community garden plot, but we always make a lot more progress when N joins us, which he did tonight.  We brought several bags of Leafpro (the commercial name for the composted yardwaste from Montgomery County) and spread them on the beds that haven't been planted, along with fertilizer and sulfur (gypsum) and some vermiculite that I've had in my shed for a couple years now.

Potato sprouts

Meanwhile, I did get the tomatoes in the ground and planted corn last week, and I managed to take some pictures of the beds that are done.  The potatoes are up; not all of them came up, but that wasn't too surprising given how long it took me to get them planted.  There were a few rotten spots on them by the time the bed was staked out and dug, but the ones that have come up so far look really happy with their situation. 

One of two rows of tomatoes

I ended up buying tomatoes seedlings at a local nursery, 5 that are indeterminate (need staking), 3 that say they are determinate, and 2 that were mysteriously not labeled either way.  I'm going to try putting plastic over the soil as a mulch this year because of the lack of water supply out there and because it's supposed to help prevent mold spores from splashing off the soil onto the plant.  I'll let you know how it turns out!

I learned something interesting from Mario, the helpful individual with the gorgeous plot (it's gotten even more beautiful since the photos I posted some time ago).  There is a small creek that runs through the woods next to the garden plots, which I had assumed would dry up in the summer when there's much less rainfall, but he told me that it's spring-fed, and has never run dry in the three years he's been gardening there.  How exciting!  He says it's a little steep getting to the water, but it's still nice to know it's there in a pinch.  He is a very interesting guy; he has a large cold frame built next to the compost pile filled with plants waiting to be transplanted into his plot, and he mixes his own organic fertilizer.  (I tried asking him if he knows where to buy bulk cottonseed meal around here, but he says he hasn't been able to find it either, so he uses....birdseed!  What genius!  He mixes it in his blender to break up the seed and says if the birds eat a little bit he doesn't mind.)