Kitchen Garden

After hours of prep work, I finally did the spring planting for our kitchen garden. The hardest part was building a retaining wall out of “one woman” rocks. Keith gave me about half the rocks I needed and a quick trip to Alpine Rockery filled in the holes. All in all, I used about 1,000 pounds of rock for the wall. I must have lifted each stone about 5 times before it settled in its permanent home (once to put it in the car, once to carry it from the car to the garden, and at least three times to put it in the right spot). My arms are quivering just thinking about it.

This year we planted Quinault strawberries, which will hopefully last for many years to come. I also planted four varieties of tomato: Sweet 100, Sun Gold, Cascade Early, and Black Plum. We’re trying peas and radishes from seed. (The trick will be to keep the cats from digging up the seeds.) And if that weren’t enough, I dropped in a thyme and sage plant for fun. 

I’m trying a new tomato technique this year. I have it on good authority that burying 80% or so of the transplanted tomato (up to the top leaves) will help the plant sprout lots of roots and grow up big and strong. So far so good, although the tomatoes look very small compared to their potted stature. I will also be plucking any flowers I see until the plant is about a foot tall. This is so the plant does not devote energy to forming fruit before its roots and foliage have filled out. Nick has assured me that he will water the tomatoes religiously while I’m in Olympia this summer, so we should have a great crop!

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