Gardening is awesome

Hello Everyone!

I've found myself in an emotional crisis over the past week. Currently, gardening (for the first time ever) is my reprieve. In all seriousness, 

gardening is improving my quality of life

I mentioned in my last post that I've started a number of different herbs and vegetables. I also mentioned that I placed a big beautiful butternut squash (BNS for short) close to my BNS seedlings. Y'all thought I was crazy but this morning I awoke to two big beautiful BNS sprouts! The role model squash has been working fabulously! On the topic of butternut squash, my boyfriend doesn't like the BNS shortening. He thinks it sounds like a disease or something else that's quite terrible. 

My current dilemma is the fact that I want to cook the role model squash for dinner tonight. I'm planning on making a butternut squash curried lentil dish. But I don' think I can butcher the role model squash in front of the seedlings! I can't do that! Boyfriend said that if I cook the role model squash, the little seedlings will refuse to grow. 

That's all I have to live for!?  They'll cry, as their little tender green selves witness the massacre of the adult BNS. I'm hoping that they'll be slightly uplifted by the smell of curry and perhaps they'll dream of one day becoming a beautiful, delicious meal. 

Butternut squash seedling has a beautiful golden role model

I've actually become so excited by the potential of having a bountiful garden that I went to Home Depot and purchased more seeds (and 3 strawberry plants). This afternoon I started 4 pumpkins and 4 watermelons in jiffy cups.

Once I get start working the soil outside and prepping the beds, I'll just have to wait till the last frost before I can move my seedlings to the great outdoors. I plan on keeping my terracotta herb garden indoors, but I'll also plant some herbs outside.

Parsley is sprouting like crazy in my indoor garden

If everything goes according to plan and my seeds all behave, I will have a beautiful garden and many vegetables and fruits to eat. I'll be growing: 

-Purple Carrots
-Carrots
-Peas 
-Butternut Squash 
-Sweet Pumpkins 
-Watermelon 
-Strawberries 
-Beets 
-Lettuce 
-Mini Bell Peppers 
-Basil
-Parsley
-Dill 
-Rosemary 

I'm so excited I can't even wait. I plan on sketching out my garden plan tonight, and I've been reading and studying gardening online. I am convinced that I will have an amazing garden, and this hope and excitement is helping me pull through my emotional crisis and my physical pain. Endometriosis won't stop for my garden, but my excitement for my garden is overcoming the endometriosis blues. 

Strawberries, role model squash, and makeshift greenhouses all chilling in my kitchen

Last summer I started this blog to document my transition to farmerhood. I've since moved into the city with my boyfriend, but perhaps I can maintain my farmer status through my vegetable garden. I'm also planning on getting a duckling (or two. or three.) but I'll have to be extra cute to get my boyfriend on board.
 
Ideally I want a mallard duckling, but I think the only way to do that is by egg-napping a duck nest and I'm not terrible enough to do that. 
SO-- if anyone can hook me up with some duck eggs and an incubator I will be SO THANKFUL. Just don't tell my boyfriend. Or my landlord.

I will be happily blogging about my garden through the spring and summer. If all goes according to plan, we will be eating well at the end of the season!

I can grow things

It's officially spring here in Calgary. We've had beautiful sunny days, and long golden evenings. Ducks are waddling about and quacking away, birds are chirping and gathering grass for their nests, and Boyfriend and I have been taking long walks around the community. 

I've had this fantasy where I have a garden and many houseplants, including an herb garden and fruit bearing trees. I've decided that my first spring in our new house would be the perfect time to start learning how to grow things.

Here's the thing. I'm great at taking care of animals. I've saved a number of animal lives, and taking care of them is what makes me tick. I love animals and I'm damn good at keeping them alive. Plants, however, prove to be a different story. I kill plants. 

I love receiving flowers, but they always seem to die prematurely as I'll forget to water them regularly and don't trim the stems. I think that perhaps a cactus garden would be more my level, but I've taken on the challenge of growing delicate green things that need care and attention. 

In terracotta pots that serve as my indoor herb garden containers, I planted basil, parsley, dill, and rosemary. After weeks of watering dirt and feeling discouraged, I've noticed that my herbs are growing! Basil was the first to pop up, followed by dill (which can't figure out what direction to grow in and tries to go back into the dirt). Parsley-- and lots of it-- popped up this morning. Still waiting on the rosemary to sprout.

In addition to my herbs, I started some of my garden veggies in jiffy pots indoors. So far I've started my peppers, butternut squash, and lettuce. They're in a homemade green house, in my kitchen. I've put the jiffy pots in an old plastic muffin container, and put the little green house over a heating pad. 2 jiffy pots have sprouting lettuce in them. I can't wait for my peppers and squash to come up. 

Today I purchased a butternut squash at the grocery store. I put the squash by the greenhouses so the butternut squash seeds would have a role model to look up to. My mother thought I was full-blown looney toons after I told her this.

I'm still not sure when to start my garden outdoors. Calgary weather is weird, and I feel like we still have another snowstorm coming. It always snows on May Long Weekend. With my luck I'd plant all my seeds and transplant the sprouts just to have it snow overnight and kill them all. 

Just when you think winter is finally behind you...

I plan on completing my garden with tomatoes, carrots, beets, peas, pumpkin, cantaloup, and strawberries.This is incredibly exciting for both Boyfriend and I. We can't wait to just pick food out of our backyard. Plus, I feel proud that I can grow things! Now maybe my garden will impress Boyfriend enough for him to let me get a bunny. I need a pet bunny.

My bunny will, of course, but adopted from a shelter. Pet stores have no need to sell bunnies. There are so many bunnies waiting for homes. Always make sure to spay or neuter your pet rabbit! This isn't an option-- get them fixed!!!!