NOW PLAYING: Mr GreenJeans

01 October, 1999
Ah, Autumn! Time for the harvest, right? Well, not for me. I spent a portion of last weekend planting a small fall garden for the very first time.

A couple rows of garlic (which won't come up until next spring, but when it does -- yum! -- we should end up with about 50 bulbs), some spinach, lettuce, radishes, and cabbage. All cool weather plants that should be able to thrive in our mild fall weather.

Growing up in the hinterlands of northern Minnesota, my folks planted a fairly large garden in our backyard. We kids "helped" out to a certain degree, though there were times I think we felt more like it was "forced labor." Picking green beans seemed like a never-ending task... And I'm sure Ma felt that canning all that produce was a never-ending task!

But I'd never had the opportunity (or the inclination) to do much gardening on my own. So I figure I'll try this small bit and see how it goes. The garlic was what really inspired me. How hard could it be, right?

So, I borrowed a roto-tiller from my Pa and churned up a small section of land in the back, which was no Big Deal -- gotta love that powered machinery. If I'd had to do it with a mule and a plow it would have been a Big Deal.

The next weekend, I decided that there were still too many grass roots, rocks, sticks and other assorted detritus in my way, and ended up taking a rake to the area that I planned to plant. Even though I was using gloves I ended up with a nasty blister on my thumb (all together now: "Awwwwww....").

Then I planted my garlic cloves and my seeds, marked the rows and gave them a shot of water.

It rained for the next three days after I planted the garden, I'm hoping that actually helped the seeds rather than drowning them. I suppose if I see little green shoots coming up in the next few days, I'll know I didn't screw things up too badly.

I keep thinking that maybe I planted some of the seeds too deeply -- the lettuce, for instance, only needed to be 1/4 inch deep. That's not very much dirt, and I'm not so sure I didn't go farther down than that, but we'll see.

The only thing I'm really hoping for is the garlic -- according to my seed book, it needs to be planted in the fall for best results. The other stuff will just be nice to have for some fresh salads in a month or so, and I suppose if the rest of the garden comes in OK so will the garlic.

In the meantime, if there's not an early killing frost, and the bugs or bunnies don't eat all my crops, and the weeds don't overpower the garden, and if some other thing doesn't devastate the little plot -- we just might get a last batch of fresh veggies before winter.

And I'll find out just how Green my Jeans are.

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