Spring gardening

I love spring. From the seemingly dead, springs new life. The world because fresh, clean and new. The start of spring is such a wonderful time to re-evaluate yourself, and the world around you. We are caught inside a job that tells us where and when to go. Like most people in the world we live in an apartment, surrounded by pavement. The only dirt around seems to be the dust on the counters. As the newness of the season re-freshens and awakens the world we are consumed with thoughts of our own piece land. We want to grow, to play in the dirt, to build things, to let our dogs run free. But, alas we have no land of our own. Someday we hope to own a chunk of land where we can be free to cultivate the earth as we please. But, for now, we are told to live here.

Our desire is strong to make for ourselves what we are able, so we are becoming creative in our earthen ways. We managed to get a small plot of earth near our landlord's garden and with plastic pots abound we have brought a garden plot to our balcony as well. Even with limited space and very limited access to familiar fruit and veggie seeds we have managed to start what I hope will be a nice little garden. We started the seeds early, over a month ago in cardboard boxes, egg cartons, plastic bottles with the tops cut off, and a Tonka truck package. The little seeds began their new life spread across our kitchen table. Now it is warm enough for our seedlings to grow up, and move out. The last of our plants will be in the ground within the next several days. The only seeds that we failed to sprout were also our most desired; basil and rosemary.

Our garden will consist of, zucchini, spinach, lettuce, cilantro, dill, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, tomatillos, paprika, eggplant, bell peppers, leeks, patypan squash, sweet corn, mint, oregano, peas, and a two small little basil plants we found. (We're going to need much more basil!) In the fall we'll plant broccoli and brussel sprouts.

It has been such a rewarding to joy plant possible food, I hope it grows well and with bounty to share with our neighbors. It's been amazing to teach our kids to enjoy the dirt (and even eat some, although I don't think he enjoyed it as much as his regular carb loaded diet.) They have been able to watch seeds grow into plants, and hopefully they'll see plats create edible food! Dirt is such a great pre-school!

It doesn't take that much dirt to grow food. What if we all planted just a few plants to decrease our grocery needs?