Garden Gnome

Few days send my heart into such a flutter as today, Plant the Garden Day. When we first considered this apartment and I eyed the overgrown but intact raised beds just west of the house, I knew this was the place for us. The first year's garden was the most difficult, removing knee-high weeds and a bumper crop of mint from the forgotten ground, borrowing the neighbor's unruly rototiller, and adding compost and manure. I wasn't sure what would grow here (everything) or how well (think Jack and the Beanstalk) so I tried a little of this, a little of that. Last year, I was overeager and planted too much, resulting in a too-full garden that bordered on the insane.

This year, I've gone back to basics, planting more flowers and the edibles I truly love. I'm using as many heirloom varieties as I could locate, in addition to seeds from a "New Year's Resolution Garden" packet my mom gave me. Each item you plant is related to a common resolution, as you'll see in the details below. The heirloom seeds are either from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds or D. Landreth Seed Company. Landreth is the oldest seed company in the country, dating from 1784, and located in New Freedom, Pennsylvania.

One of my garden's raised beds is below where an air conditioner drips, so that rectangle is reserved for flowers only. A mess of Sweet William survived the winter and looks fantastic; in its midst I also planted sunflowers ("I will make more family time"), Monarda Bergamo ("I will help the environment") and mixed annual cutting flowers ("I will have less stress"). I also bought a flat of snapdragons, pansies and violas which I added to this bed and to my half-round brick-lined flower bed.

My chives, lavender, Italian parsley and thyme survived, and to these I added cilantro, dill, sage and rosemary. I planted "Rocky Top" heirloom lettuce mix, heirloom Chioggia beets (pre-1840 Italian), carrots "Tonda di Parigi" (19th century Parisian), arugula and Alaska garden peas. I've also cultivated wild strawberries and various mosses which grow in between the bricks and elsewhere in my garden.

Here are most of the herbs with the survivor Sweet William in the background:

Here are the garden peas just before I covered them. Hopefully the birds will leave them alone!

And here is a photo of the lettuce, arugula, beets and carrots, all in a row!