Wedgwood R&D: Tomatoes are in

We have been planning on the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale for months, and it was awesome. We got there later than I wanted to and the line was really long, but there was a playground and it was a super friendly line so we stuck it out, and wow, I am so glad we did. What could be the big deal about a plant sale, you may ask? Well let me tell you. The selection was fantastic: heirlooms, near-natives, stuff that's well known in Europe that should be more popular here, all stuff that is known to succeed in Seattle. There was no nursery crap that is only there because it's the marathon-producer hybrid thing they sell all over the country and only looks good today because it's hopped up on fertilizer. These starts here were healthy and strong and normal, and not even root bound. The signage was perfect, telling me exactly what I wanted to know in order to decide if I wanted that in my garden. The staff was amazing: people hovering everywhere eager to help with whatever questions I had. It was so exciting and inspiring, I loved it.

Buying plants means planting plants, and we spent all afternoon yesterday at work in the garden, sometimes in the rain. I didn't take any pictures then, I forgot, but also it was raining and messy. (I took pictures today instead.) Sue was with us and she entertained Jordan - she knows how to garden with preschoolers. We had bought six different tomato plants, herbs, a little lettuce, bok choy, a sweet bell pepper, an early jalapeno, an "eight-ball" zucchini, some great little cucumber, and delicata squash. We also had some special potatoes and strawberries from a friend. This is all added to the stuff I planted a couple weeks ago. We are packed.

I don't have much experience as a lead gardener - I have done more caretaking than initiating (weeding is my favorite), and my instincts for how to set things up to grow well are not very well-educated instincts. I think about the light they will get, but really what's under the ground is at least as important as what's above it. Sue is a master, and she shows me where the soil is only loose two inches down, so the roots only grow two inches down, and the plant kind of peters out after two inches up. She advises me to pull the rhubarb stalks straight out rather than cutting them, that they will grow more. She is aggressive about digging stuff up and replanting it somewhere else - I tend to think more in terms of working around what's already succeeding in a particular place. But half the time I wind up digging stuff up anyway, because halfway through I realize the soil needs deep work, not just weeding. For example, this side yard - I methodically removed all the weeds, and then got into the roots of an old tree that used to be there, and basically pulled up the whole bed and replanted the good stuff. Foxglove, lilies, and something else that was tagged as begonia but that Sue informed me is a bergenia. I never heard of that. Internet research backs her up.

Six tomato plants, all in containers on the deck - that's warmer for them, the dirt is ideal, and they're easier to protect from pests. The cherry tomatoes are Sweet Million and Isis Candy. The regular tomatoes are Sasha's Altai, Grushovka, Chianti Rose, and Black Krim. This is too many tomatoes for us to eat - Bekah and I plan to do some canning. Peppers are iffy in Seattle because our growing season is just not all that long, but we are going for a chocolate bell and an early jalapeno. The boys are playing shovel-guitars on the "stage."

One of our raised beds is falling down; Dale propped it up which will probably hold it until fall. We're planning to replace it with recycled plastic "boards" that Sue likes. The bed contains chard, chard, chard, chives, onions, and sage, none of them close to the edge because it might just collapse.

I dug up out a whole zone that had been totally eaten by two kinds of mint (a spearmint and a peppermint) and a very successful Golden Marjoram. (The Slattons left all the labels in the ground, which is very informative.) I had no idea mint was so invasive; the roots run sideways underground and just choke out everything else. I like to have some mint, but Sue says it's hard to contain. Potting it is wise. I have never had any use for marjoram, but I'll keep a little of that too. There is a huge old rosemary - I should find out how to take care of that, it is ancient and kind of ratty looking.

Lilies and clematis by the back-door steps, which might do better now that they are not choked by mint.

One of the raised beds already has a very happy parsley from last year, which I use all the time, and we planted sage, oregano, and four kinds of basil in containers, surely excessive of us. Sweet Italian, Genovese, Thai, and Sweet Petra (purple). So I should be good for herbs.

I didn't want to do lettuce because it's so vulnerable, I think it just gets eaten (and not by me). I did plant one tray of mache (called "corn salad" in the US, apparently), which is a fun little nutritious tasty salad green. And we have WAY too much chard. I thought I was buying four chard plants and thought well, I'll get eight. Then Sue informed me that each of the plants I had planted was actually five or six plants stuck together and I needed to break them up so that they had room to grow. If this amount of chard succeeds I am going to be challenged to stay on top of it. It freezes well, supposedly. This is good, because we also have cabbage, bok choy, and last year's kale and broccoli coming up. Note for next year: Don't get so jazzed about gardening in March that you fill up your best areas with winter greens.

Tiny mache plants.

Raspberry bed which also has strawberries in it; we hope that works. Apple tree (we think?) in bloom.

It's hard to know what's going to work in the back bed. It doesn't get full sun. There are some crazy successful daisies that are coming up very fast, and forget-me-nots, and now a great multitude of tiny chard plants, along with the cabbage. The peas (under the triangular trellis) are no bigger than when I planted them, which likely means I didn't prepare the soil well. We'll need to fix that.

To the left of the peas, Dale did major cultivation work to make a bed for the potatoes, squash, zucchini, and cucumber. There's a beautiful tulip tree in the neighbor's yard, which meant negotiating with the tree roots.