This morning I came over to Erin's with the intent of finally potting the strawberries. First things first, I went out to the garden to see if today was the day that something green would finally be poking out of the dirt to say hello. Lo and behold, I saw something green! And here is the first mystery... are these weeds growing in lines, or is it ARUGULA?! I. Have. No. Idea.
Please forgive the terrible quality of my camera phone.
Next, I brought a pot out to the porch, grabbed my handy knife (see post #1), cut open a bag of dirt from Farmer D's, looked inside the bag, and thought, "what the hell is this?" I guess I was expecting to see rich, dark potting soil. Instead, what I saw looked a lot like sand. Ergo - Mystery Number Two.
I promptly called Farmer D's and said, "Yo, I want to pot some strawberries. Can I use this 'Custom Blend 3-4-4' stuff that I bought from you?" The guy on the phone tells me that should be fine. I completely trust Farmer D's, but I still have my doubts. Maybe this guy on the phone assumes I'm smarter than I am and that I know I need to mix this Custom Blend with actual potting soil. Who knows? So many mysteries!
I decide to split the vote and kind of pot the strawberries. Let's be honest, I need a second opinion, and Erin is at work today. So me and the strawberries are going to straddle the fence until tomorrow when Erin will be around to give some input.
Straddling the fence means I at least want to rescue the berries from the plastic bag they have been living in since I brought them home from South Carolina.
Again, please forgive the quality of the camera on my old-school phone.
So here is what I do: I pour the Custom Blend into the pot. Then, I remove the berries one by one from the bag, spay the roots with some water, and place them on top of the dirt in the pot. This way, I figure they will get some water and sunlight, and they can decide if they like the dirt enough to dig their roots into it. This is a temporary fix. But it makes me feel better for now. I also pruned off some of the dead leaves while singing an Avett Brothers song to myself "Show them all your good parts/leave town when the bad ones start to show." I also don't know if this is a good idea or not, but I did it anyway.
It has been a morning of mysteries. Erin and I know that we are novices. We know that this project is "learn by trial". But it does catch you off guard when your idealistic planning time is over, and you meet the thing head on only to find yourself thinking, "I have no idea what I am doing." I still feel incredibly joyful about this whole thing, however, and I can't wait to see where we are in a month.
Tomorrow Erin and I both have the entire day off, so there should finally be some chicken stuff going down. So... Hang tight!
OH YEAH! One more thing! The cave of mysteries did yield one sure-as-shit treasure this morning, and I say that because the treasure is... Horse Manure! After I had taken all of the berry plants out of the plastic bag Mamma B sweetly packed them into, I found a substantial amount of horse manure compost/fertilizer at the bottom of the bag! (see post #4 for pictures) This is sure to come in handy in the garden. Thanks, Mamma B!
Just did some image searches and found this link, which I thought was not only proof that OUR ARUGULA IS GROWING but also a good heads up that we will need to do some "thinning" soon.
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyfarmblog.com/first-cuts/