Here 'tis--our plot at Stony Kill. Twenty by forty feet (two 20 x 20 sections) of empty dirt just waiting to be the 2009 home for our garden madness. We arrived at 10:45, and by 12:30 we'd planted 3 squash, 5 zucchini, 9 okra, 11 chili hot peppers, 6 maxixe, 8 jiló, a few nasturtiums and a whole bunch of little tiny Italian lettuces.We began by mapping where we were going to plant things, then used rakes to break up the soil. Even though this is an organic farm, it's amazing how much garbage we found: plastic pieces of plant tags, discarded plastic pots, a bottle top, half a soda can, and other random bits of cast-off leftovers. We also discovered some mint that will probably cause a few issues. It had already shot runners throughout about a quarter of the plot, and will undoubtedly make return appearances all summer. (I think this also means I dub 2009 the year of the mojito...again...)
And then it was time to plant. As a city person who needs to buy soil at the store, it was so wonderful to play in the Stony Kill dirt. This was real earth, and felt absolutely amazing. Forget gloves and any sort of trying to stay clean--I just plopped down, kneeled in the dirt and played. Beautiful.
Last summer, Jess and Nancy had amazing success planting their zucchini and squash in mounds comprising the existing soil and Moo Dirt. I may have been a bit overzealous, but insisted that we had room for 8 plants (5 zucchini and 3 yellow squash). If they all take and have a highly-productive summer, we're going to have TONS, and I'll be making zucchini bread until next May.
Three maxixe and a grave...I mean, er, the raised bed that'll be the future home of beets, onions, carrots, and radishes. I did a little maxixe research, and as its in the cucumber family, we decided to plant them in mounds as well. I went for two mounds of three plants each--a sort of arbitrary decision, and we'll see how they like it.
We planted a row of jiló--about half of what I'd started from seed. They're still pretty tiny, so we'll see if these little babies like North America!
We basically planted the entire left-quarter of the plot. In the lower 3 rows: The little leggy two-leaf things on the far left are okra, and the rest are the chili hots. Above them is the mound of maxixe, the row of jiló, the other maxixe, and the raised bed.
A closer view of the chili hot peppers. Seeds from last summer's crop, sown in my window on 34th Street, finally planted about 60 miles north of NYC. Do well, little guys!
The plot after a morning of digging and planting. We returned a little later to add four Yellow Boy tomato plants and four red cabbages (yeah...we had to break down and buy a couple of things we just couldn't find in seed form...oh well).
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