How Does Your Garden Grow? - Practicing patience

How Does Your

Garden Grow?

I’m starting to panic.

It’s been 15 days and still no bell pepper sprouts. The fields are barren. The land, she yields nothing.

I brought in the big guns and called my mom who has assured me that I have nothing to worry about, that it could take time for them to come up. And I really want to believe her, but all my past gardening failures make it difficult to have faith that I didn’t somehow mess up and it’s all going to be a wash.

Patience doesn’t always come easily to me. My most loyal reader (see above) also read about my need for rocks disguised as strawberries and painted me the most adorable little infiltrators. She used acrylic paints and sealed them with clear varnish so they’d withstand the elements and be usable for years to come. They’re so cute that I’d rather decorate my house with them than put them outside, but I’ll try not to get distracted from their intended purpose. At least the birds won’t know what hit them.

I’m starting to feel more comfortable composting, especially with Cattail Organics’ Katrina Becker supporting me. I questioned the smell as I love my coworkers and I’d hate for them to chase me out of the building while my compost bin works its magic. Katrina told me that I should eventually move my bin outside.

“Composting takes heat, time and will have a bit of a smell no matter what,” she said.

While I would never question Katrina’s wisdom, I’m going to keep my tote inside until it becomes so putrid that I don’t have any other options, and even then, I probably won’t admit defeat right away. Some people don’t have outside space available to them, and I want to troubleshoot and solve any obstacles that might pop up so that everyone has an opportunity to grow their own food. We will be your guinea pigs.

Nobody tell Brian Wilson, his desk is closest to the compost bin.

Katrina also told me that I shouldn’t expect my scraps to turn into compost for three to five months, and that’s with frequent turning. She did say that if I use worms it could take less time, which I’m seriously considering. She sent me a link to the Cornell University Extension at https:// ccetompkins.org/gardening/composting/compostresources which stated that composting worms will eat up to a quarter of their own body weight each day. Who knew? Unfortunately, the same information also states that regular earthworms won’t survive in a worm tote and that red wrigglers do the best.

The idea that I would even weigh the benefits of touching something called a red wriggler should tell you how badly I want this to work.

I’m also going to haul in a pail full of goat poop from home which will really help keep the smell down in the compost tub, I’m sure. My goats Ernie and Fergus have been purely ornamental their whole lives and I’m excited for them to contribute for the first time.

My husband and I have been talking about being more self-sufficient for years and now that I’m gardening we might as well keep the ball rolling. Since egg prices are skyrocketing we decided to raise chickens at home. The Home Show in Medford this past weekend presented us with the perfect opportunity as PK Poultry Co. was on hand with chicks and a team of experts who gave us more information than

we’d probably get at a big chain, and their prices were competitive.

They recommended we order Leghorns and told us that six chickens would more than support a family of four. They lay white eggs and one bird could produce an average of 280 eggs a year. We deferred to their expertise and ordered six Leghorn chicks that should be ready to come home mid-April, which gives us a little bit of time to get our ducks in a row, pun intended.

In addition to thinking about what it’s going to take to keep chickens alive I’m still working on gathering bottles and other items to assist with drainage in the bottom of my planting buckets. I’m worried that I have drastically underestimated the amount of bottles I’m going to need for seedlings and I’d rather have too many containers than too few.

We’re also going to plant tomato seeds this week! I’m sure they’re going to flourish and thrive and won’t sit in the window taunting me and disappointing everyone like another vegetable we know.

I should have been mentally prepared that things might not go exactly as I planned. Even with the best of intentions, and with all the information and all the appro- Our goats, Fergus David and Ernest Big Mike, named after my dad and father-in-law, doing what they do best.

priate tools, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Sometimes things just don’t go our way. And that’s okay. My life won’t be over if my bell peppers don’t come up or if my compost leaks all over the floor. Both of those things would suck, and I wouldn’t like it, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I can’t predict the future and all I can do is hope that things will go my way.

Until then I will try to be patient. Just in case, contact me with suggestions on what to do when you have a gardening column and no garden.

Mandee Ellis is a reporter at The Star News. Contact her at Mandee@centralwinews.com.

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My mom, Andie, painted the most adorable little strawberries onto rocks to help deter the birds once our berries start popping up.