We put out seven tomato plants over the weekend and, as of this writing, they’re waving their little leaves in the breeze and looking as happy as tomato plants can.
This cheers me, because nothing smells quite as much like summer as a tomato plant. Even more than freshly cut grass.
After a year of COVID and all its life disruptions, I’m looking forward to having a garden this year because it’s something that used to be normal. And even though I’m not usually a big fan of normal, it sounds pretty good right now.
So, we’re having a garden this year but we’re going about it in a different way in deference to my lower back, which objects and complains loudly when I ask it to bend too deeply or too often.
We are planting our edibles in 18-gallon buckets.
So far, it’s good. We have planted potatoes, including the obligatory blue ones, and a bucket of 1015 onions.
Last Sunday we planted the tomatoes, including a Black Krim and a couple of Cherokee Purples.
I’d like another Black Krim, if I can come across one. They’re as ugly as a dropped touchdown pass, but dang, they sure do taste good. The last time I grew them, I rarely made it all the way to the house with a ripe one.
I have never eaten a Cherokee Purple, but people in the gardening forums say they’re about like a Black Krim.
We bruised a couple of tomato leaves while planting and got that “eating a fresh tomato on the front porch at Grandma’s house” aroma that promises summer isn’t too far away.
I truly hope the bucket garden works out well. Already, I find I like a knee-high garden much better than one that requires me to bend too much or get on my knees.
The potatoes are a couple of inches tall and the kiddoes have already eaten some green onions, so I am proclaiming it in an early-stage success.
The big test will come in May, when we plant the sweet potatoes. If we can grow and harvest a crop of sweet potatoes in a bucket, my life will be forever changed.
Then sometime in June we will plant squash (‘squarsh’ if you are from Fitzhugh) and see how it does. Several years ago I planted some squash in June and didn’t have a single squash bug. So that’s when I plant it now.
Purplehull peas rank right along side sweet potatoes as from-the-garden fare, so I may try a couple of buckets and see if we can coax a mess of peas, as Grandma Blansett used to say.
COVID on the decline, a garden in the ground.
This could be a good year.