How to Tell You’ve Gone Bougie

Maybe you always had tendencies but no space or money before. Now, you’re growing a garden!

There are vegetables galore, everything your ignorant mind could throw at a 4×10′ plot! 6 pea plants, all put in at the same time. 6 sprouting broccoli plants. Three corn plants (one died), a row of onions, a row of beets, three courgette plants, 7 pepper plants (none thrived, four eventually moved to pots, one of which has flowered), 4 tomato plants in two varieties, lettuce.

Who knew courgettes grew 3′ wide? Surely it would have said that on the back of the packet! (Wait, men don’t read the backs of packets)

And to top it all off, your old “poor food” meal, rice & veggies (no meat) has gone from taking about 20 minutes to make, to 45 minutes, has red camargue rice and brown rice, courgettes, carrots and peas from your garden, and duck breasts (because they were on sale).

But damn, is it good to eat yummy food that you’ve grown yourself!

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Let’s Get This Garden Started!

For the past few weeks we’ve been waiting excitedly for seeds to sprout and be ready to plant out. Sweetcorn, tomatoes, tiny little round carrots, basil, courgettes (that’s zucchini to Americans), sprouting broccoli…I feel like there’s something else but can’t think of what it is…it’s been exciting and frustrating, sitting there staring at them as they come out, get two leaves, grow tall, and then stall. They’re mostly still skinny little things not quite ready to go out, except the courgettes, which went huge! and into the ground today.

We also have various herbs, two lavenders (one blue, one pink), rosemary, coriander (cilantro to Americans and Spanish speakers), chives, thyme, strawberries, tarragon, too many peas, too many onions, too many beets (anyone want some seedlings?), what else…parsley and fennel! We went to the gardening store for soil and of course everything looked awesome, so we bought it. 10 small herbs for £14.99, buy 5, get 6th free veg. Good deal!

maters

The empty spot in the middle you can barely tell is empty is reserved for lettuce! There will be sweetcorn at the back of the left hand side. Courgettes are at the back of the right hand side. Last year when I visited, I got to see G’s plot and I’m now experiencing what she did, that you need a much bigger plot than you think you do. At least we’re not doing many squashes. Their leaves are huge ground coverers. I’ve been remembering my neighbor’s mother’s plot from childhood – it was their entire backyard! All I can remember is that they had lots and lots of cucumbers. We won’t get to do that, I don’t think we’d want to, but I do want to grow more stuff. Potatoes, shallots, onions and garlic are in the works.

Can’t wait until everything’s bigger and really growing! This is our first garden, really excited for eating what we’ve grown ourselves. I thought we ought to test the soil to see if it’s poisonous, being in a city and all, but one of our roommates decided that this area has been housing for at least two hundred years, so we just went with it.

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