Farmer on the Hill

On Saturday, I planted my kitchen garden.

But this bland statement does not even begin to describe the preceding days of painful preparation (made seemingly endless by a truly stunning case of jet lag) or the orgy of weed-pulling, compost-raking, garden-center indecision, hole-digging, and stake-planting required for my few modest herbs and vegetable plants.

I am not sure why the early-summer sowing is always a Production of the Highest Magnitude. My garden is, by necessity, extremely small and convenient to the house, consisting of just two beds hard up against the back wall of the kitchen and family room. Its diminutive size is related mostly to the fact that the greater part of our back yard is shaded by the woods for a good part of the day, as well as swampy and squelchy due to its underlying foundation of good honest Marcellus shale (I have been waiting expectantly for some fracking company to come and bestow upon me a small fortune for the rights to the limitless supply of natural gas lying in wait underneath - sadly, to date none has been forthcoming).

Anyway, what with the shade, the mud, the impossibility of excavation, the covens of evil-eyed groundhogs, and the vast herds of rabbits infesting the place, I find it best to keep my farm petite, manageable, and where I can keep a close eye on it.

Even so, of course, I have had my share of gardening snafus. Cleverly determined to plant my mint in a large barrel, for example (keeping in mind the old adage that the best approach with this freely-spreading herb is to 'dig it in and stand back'), I did so with great self-satisfaction only to chart its transformation into a teeming ant hill - right outside my kitchen door! - within a few weeks.

On another red-letter occasion I decided to adopt the romantic theme of an apothecary's patch - and discovered that 'easy-to-grow' is heirloom-speak for 'will overrun the rest of your plantings before you can say 'Where's the Roundup?'. I spent the rest of the summer grumpily yanking clumps of lemon balm, horehound, and wormwood from between the cracks in the paving stones and, catastrophically, throughout the lawn the following year.

My carefully-tended tomatoes all died before harvesting the summer I had the audacity to go on vacation during a particularly dry July - and slugs ate all my peppers during a wet June the year before (maybe it was the year after - I know it was two seasons in a row and the next time 'round I didn't even bother).

Last year, given a variety of extenuating circumstances, I didn't plant anything at all with the result that the beds became totally choked with weeds, unkillable lemon balm, and (I think) peanut seedlings from legumes dropped over the winter by snacking squirrels.

The beds I surveyed with a sinking heart on my return from SA were, resultingly, a bit of a mess.

However, I had a number of reasons for wanting real vegetal and herbal success this year - and a similar abundance of hopeful circumstances led me to believe triumph might be within my grasp.

Good omens first:

• Sir and I had resolved to start the garden afresh this year, and previously removed the ant-infested barrel and as much of the lemon balm and catmint (why on earth did I ever plant that?) as possible. My beds may have been unsightly, but they could have been way, way worse.
• Since the garden lay fallow last year, it wasn't that difficult to weed out (get it?) the hearty keepers that would form the basis of the new plantings: three kinds of thyme (golden, French, and another one), chives, and some flat-leaf parsley. Everything else was easily pull-outable by its roots.
• Unusually, I will be able to monitor the tender plantings through June and most of July, since the family hols are brief this year and later in the season than is customary. Everything should have a good chance to get established before we go away and I may even start harvesting before that, reducing the feeling of total despair if everything croaks while we gone. I might even be sufficiently motivated to organize a watering locum this year.

My reasons for wanting a garden this summer are almost entirely the result of the momentous culinary changes that have occurred a chez Fractured Amy in the past year:

• As a newly-minted home preserver (and conflicted disciple of Madame Ferber) I am finding an increased need for the sorts of greenery that are easy to grow but expensive to buy: lavender, rosemary, the aforementioned thyme, basil, and mint (peppermint, to be precise) to name but a few.
• I also need herbs for all the gluten-freedom fighting I am doing these days, requiring copious amounts of fresh tarragon, bay, oregano, and parsley for my stock-making, side-dishes, and confit fabrication.
• My new devotion to peppers as a means of enlivening the family's tastebuds (peppadews® are going into, like, everything these days) and their beauty on the vine (prettier than summer flowers, I tend to think) meant that the planting of at least two or three varieties was just plain common sense.
• Ditto tomatoes - plus, I feel guilty having to rely on others for their summer harvest when I am perfectly capable of growing - and when the time comes - canning my own.
• How can a wannabe suburban homesteader such as myself be worthy of the name without back-yard organic produce gracing the table? Some of my favorite new ingredients (such as butternut squash and cauliflower - well, cauliflower isn't new, exactly, but I've never tried to grow it before) will taste much much better, I am sure, having been nurtured by my own fair hands.
• Romanesco I am growing solely for its cool mathematical properties.

So that's the current plan. I shall be on bunny and slug patrol from dawn til dusk, watering can filled and snippety-snips at the ready. My trowel will be nearby always and my stylish supply of eccentric gardening hats standing by.

Just call me the Fractured Farmer.

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