Muck Up to Here---

There's dirt in my hair...
...which is strange since, up until that point, I hadn't even been outside yet. Ah, the tragic life of the tragically inept gardner. It has more to do with my haphazerd storage situation with my gardening supplies, which i dug into with vigor today. Things are teeter-tottering on a shelf in the far corner of my garage, behind stacks of patio chairs and the lawn mower. I had to shove a weed wacker out of the way to the pile, but I was the victor in the end. Except for maybe the dirt in the hair. I'm still not quite sure how that happened, just that there was a lot, and perhaps I should have noticed when it all fell on my head.
I was successful however, in pulling all my pots, supplies and seeds from my garage and dragging them up to my living room. I made lots of trips up and down the stairs. I'll need the exercise to prepare for all that weeding. :) I'm on a 10lb weight restriction, (bad back) and since my hubby is bound to be suprised at the pile of gardening stuff now occupying the corner of our living room, I wanted to be sure that I would honestly be able to tell him i behaved. This is my pile. Lemme break it down for ya... (insert your own beep-bop noises)

I've been collecting for the last couple of years. Every time something goes on sale, I get this sick urge to have it. :) But how can you resist a cute tin pail with pepper plants (hot and sweet) for $.50? Or rather, WHY resist the urge?

These are my seeds. I know. It's way too much. But somehow, I plan on cramming all of this into every inch of sunny property my husband will share with me. The way I see it, people don't need to play in my yard when they come over. They could stroll through my gardens. The way he sees it, I'm crazy. Actually, I that is a perception shared by many family and friends. Which is fine. It just means less jars of roasted tomatoes to share. ;)

This year, thanks to cheap cyber monday on Amazon, I decided to get Trellis netting. Everything that spreads out is going up. EVERYTHING. Except for maybe the 200 lb. watermelon. I don't think people want that on a vine dangling overhead. (insert Newton/apple-watermelon/gravity joke here)

My biggest obsession in my garden is undoubtedly my Kale. "My" because I am fortunate enough to have a husband who does not like it. All 4 variations of it are mine. Dinosaur is my favorite, though not because I've eaten it, but I'm really hoping this prehestoric looking Kale plant gets as large as the package promises and I can eat kale chips larger than my face. Though on reconsideration, that might make it difficult to put in my mouth.

I'm really going to try and go bigger with my herbs this year. I put them in a pot and forgot them last year and got many pretty bolted flowers, but not much to eat. Whoops! But, I have an idea lurking around the edges of my mind, linking my compost pile and my herb garden together using this brilliant idea a friend shared with me...

I've seen people use pallets for a compost pile, and when a friend mentioned she'd seen people garden with them, and i found this photo, I thought, I'll build a compost pile with this on three sides, grow herbs around the outsides, and put a little door on the rear facing open side. Hopefully the herbs will mask the odor of rotting fruit and scraps, and it'll save space. And i'f i walk back to the compost pile with my scraps, hopefully I won't be to lazy not to pick the herbs before they bolt. I just have to nail down a sunny spot. (My poor hubby)

And I can't tell you how glad I am to have this- care of Organic Gardening. It's the cliff notes of gardening, without feeling like you've cheated. It has everything from interplanting strategies to the month by month "to do" (or right now, "to don't") list. January is looking pretty bleak, but thumbing forward to February and March gets pretty exciting. I get downright giddy flipping the pages back and forth.
The weather is obscene out there right now, muck up to here, off and on rain and mud strong enough to suck your boots down to China. (where they probably came from) But it's still nice enough to hop and skip up and down the path, imagining where exactly that row of dinosaur kale will go, and suddenly the weather seems just a little bit less yucky. :D I can't wait for spring!