Saturday, August 8, 2009

Lettuce Give Thanks























This spring I planted a variety of vegetables and herbs in my garden. I wasn't sure how to go about planting a garden. House plants under my care had never lived longer than six months, understandably, I was nervous. The first day we started digging the soil was incredibly rocky and a foot below the rocky soil, lay concrete. It was unfortunate, I had already surmised the inevitability of stony soil, all one has to do is look at the landscape of Connemara to know that big rocks and little rocks will play a starring role in, The Things That Annoy You About Gardening in Galway. The concrete was a bummer, I had hoped to grow kohlrabi, carrots and onions. My root veggie dreams were smashed between rocks and concrete. I soldiered on with lettuce, garlic and gooseberries.

I only found out last week, pretty much any idiot can throw down some seeds and they'll grow. All the gardening books I had read made me wonder how anything grew in the wild without the helping hand of man, between that and the plant hypochondria ... One gardening book in particular showed pictures of plants with various viruses, diseases, bugs and fungus. I was convinced my raspberries had some sort of virus. It was almost nice to of set actual hypochondria with this new plant one.
Last week I ate the first head of lettuce it was amazing, all that garden to fork crap is true. It felt great to make a bouquet garni from my herbs. If I were to buy the herbs at the shop it would have cost almost ten Euro to assemble. It was probably about twelve Euro to buy my herbs, pots and compost. I almost made my money back from one measly bouquet garni. I have enjoyed gardening, It wasn't nearly as time consuming or as hard as I had envisioned. I haven't mastered it by any means. But hey, any idiot can throw down some seeds and see what grows. It's brilliant!

















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