One of the things I have been keeping myself busy with during quarantine/avoiding-public-places-at-all-costs-time is gardening. It wasn’t really on purpose, my family came into the ownership of several plants that a closing greenhouse needed to get rid of.
We kind of grabbed a variety of plants without much planning and ended up with broccoli sprouts, some petunias, begonias, coleus, geraniums, a few pepper plants, a tomato plant, and a fern (also a flowering plant I couldn’t for the life of me find the name of- apparently small white five-petaled flowers is too vague for google). Additionally we had an assortment of wildflower seeds which turned out to be predominately cosmos flowers, which I am familiar with from Animal Crossing- another way I have been passing this time.
At any rate, we had a somewhat neglected area in the side yard that was once the home of several flowering trees, but was now the home of unruly pine tree saplings, dead trees, a bunch of old plant pots, and a long lost yard chair. So clearing out this area was the first task of several in order to get some of these plants in the ground. This was a process that spanned a few days, mostly because it was getting quite hot outside and I required my father’s help as he is much more adequate at physical labor than me. Eventually the area was clear and better soil was purchased (as we have clay heavy soil) and we planted the sun-loving plants, starting with the 12 broccoli sprouts, 3 peppers, 1 tomato, 3 coleus, and 4 geraniums. The wildflower seeds were scattered around a bit later on.
The geraniums and petunias (which would be planted later but for now were on a table outside) bloomed first, and to my surprise the flowers seem to stay bloomed for quite some time. I was also surprised with the cool star-like pattern on the more magenta of the three petunia plants. The begonias (at least I hope I identified them correctly… although I’ve heard the name begonia before, I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly seen one) looked very cool with their pink branching stems.
The pepper plants were brutally bitten by perhaps a rabbit when they were still very small and so we relocated them all to pots along the side of the house, which seemed to serve them well. They have been growing pretty slow and just recently we seem to have some small green peppers that aren’t ready to be picked yet.
The broccoli plants began to grow larger, though over time only 6 of them seemed to really survive, and only 3 of them produced proper broccoli before all being attacked by moth caterpillars and deer (we speculate deer since entire leaves were bitten off). I didn’t have a plan for the broccoli (was perhaps thinking about broccoli and cheese soup) and opted for eating them raw, after a rinse of course.
The tomato plant has been hustling and so far has grown all the way up the tomato cage, and has produced a large plump green tomato. It’s a shame I hate tomatoes but at least I have a family member who does.
Lastly we have the latest star of the show, the wildflowers who popped up from seeds and all decided to bloom in the past few weeks. They seem to be mostly cosmos with a mix of a few others I couldn’t really identify. I suspect they are some type of daisy as well as cornflowers, but it’s always interesting whenever I check on them outside. At first it was a single orange cosmos, then a second, then a pink one, then a whole ton more orange ones with occasional yellow and pink (this is riveting content huh). The single ultramarine cornflower I saw was hiding between all the other tall flowers. I love the look of a meadow where singular plants don’t have identities (so I don’t feel grief as I did when seeing the poor chomped off broccoli or pepper plants), and you can just observe a variety of native bees buzz around and see a cricket or lizard just chillin’ in the shade of the plants. In my mind I’m just like dang I need my entire future yard to be just a meadow. Like expand this cluster of flowers over the entire yard and just have a mowed path to walk through. Endless bouquet possibility.
I think having this garden which changes day to day gives me some sort of purpose or reason to get outside when otherwise I spend the entire day inside largely staring at a screen, especially during this time where I can’t see my friends or go to public places. Additionally it was nice to notice the little things everywhere around the yard just as I did when I was younger and had more time on my hands.
Have any of you guys been gardening?
Thanks for reading :0
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