My sister gave me one piece of advice when I started to garden, "Keep a journal." She said that it had been an effective way for her to evaluate different varieties, techniques and planting layouts. After a year and a half of trying to keep straight in my head whether I liked the Greek oregano and when I should plant my carrots to avoid splitting, I decided to keep a blog of my little urban garden. You can follow along to see the joys and moments of frustration associated with my 20 by 20 ft community garden pot. This is my second year of gardening in DC, and I am definitely still a novice. It has been a great way to get a little sun, snag some tasty okra for fritters, and relax on Sunday afternoons.

I went to my garden yesterday around noon to plant the remaining open space in my garden. When I arrived, I was saddened to see that my beautiful swiss chard plants had been dug up by a little creature and left to dry out in the sun. I had been so proud of my little plants that were grown directly from seed, and the swiss chard thinnings had led to some very tasty salads. Gardening can be stark reminder that although you can nurture your little plants to the best of your abilities, there will always be things outside your control. The choice is either to accept that plants will fail, disease may come, and the rain, oh the rain, will not necessarily fall on cue, or give up gardening. I decided to plant a couple more short rows of a heirloom swiss chard and hope for the best. I'll need to look up some ways to protect my new plants when they begin to mature in a couple of weeks.

After addressing the swiss chard, I got busy mixing in some organic top soil and planting some beets, carrots and lima beans. I bought some heirloom varieties from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange this year for the frist time http://www.southernexposure.com/index.html I think it may be a little late to plant carrots in this area because the soil temperature is pretty warm, but I still wanted to try. I used last year's harvest of carrots to make the tastiest spaghetti sauce I had ever cooked. I am hoping to learn more about "putting aside" carrots to make batches of spaghetti sauce throughout the year. To learn more about preserving my harvest, I am going to read the new Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle just as soon as it arrive in the DC public Library.

Enough for now. Happy gardening :)