My Garden

My garden is a big mess of dirt, rock, and weeds.  I do have a few things growing:

• Basil
• Parsley
• Sweet potato leaves
• Sage
• Mint

Not much of a list.  I bought some seeds to plant, but I never bring them out at the right time.  Yesterday would have been perfect.  I had several enthusiastic children digging the dirt patch, but never thought to get them to work on planting the seeds.  My friend did bring me an oregano cutting, which has been popped into the ground near the sweet potato leaves.  And, they did spot that I had some kind of squash probably growing by itself in the garden, too.

Richard's friends helping dig some of the garden a month or so ago.

Now and then, knowledgeable people come to visit, and point out wild foods growing around us.  The neighbor taught me how to cut the oversized bamboo and wash it gently for an hour or so to get rid of the bitterness.  We discovered our plant that makes a very nice juice-type drink when boiled and mixed with lemon and sugar.  And, there are leaves that you cook with fish to bring out the flavor.  I'm still trying to tell all of these plants apart from the weeds.

We are also doing some basic composting.  I mix our raw food scraps with paper, hair from the drain, old cotton clothes we no longer need, grass clippings, and dirt.  Due to the heat, it only takes about three months for everythign to become a big mushy messy that can be mixed in the garden dirt.  My garden does look more like dirt than last year.  Now, if only I could find motivation to take ALL the rocks out of the dirt.  The compost bin has been a nesting ground for the stag beetles we have in the yard.  They are cute little things, really.