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Growing StuffJune 15, 2008 My studio apartment has a sunrise-facing deck. My windows and front door are filled with green, except for the topmost and widest window, which features treetops, pale blue sky, and sun-suffused clouds. I come and go via the deck, which has its own stairs to the ground. At the bottom of the inside stairs is a door to the outside, but I mostly use the inside stairs to go down to my bathroom, which is off Sarah's studio. With the recent hot weather Travvy has discovered the inside stairs because the square of pebbly linoleum at the bottom is the coolest place in the building. There he sprawls on his tummy with his hind legs out behind him. The inside stairs are varnished and slippery; he prefers the outside stairs, which are weathered wood and offer better traction to a puppy who still exercises care when going in a downward direction. Anyway, my sunrise-facing deck came with four flowerpots and a wooden windowbox-like planter that's built onto the south-facing rail. When I moved in late February a year ago, or rather sometime in mid-spring, when I was pretty well settled in, it occurred to me that I should do something with those pots, which were full of dirt and a few scraggly weeds. I'm not a gardener, however, and possibility of doing something kept receding until pretty soon it was September and too late. Whew. I was off the hook. However, another spring rolled around, as springs are wont to do, and the possibility started nudging again at the back of my brain. I actually thought about going to the annual COMSOG (Community Solar Greenhouse) seedling sale in mid-May. But it was a fairly cool spring this year, right up till the end of May, and besides I was too occupied with the resident fauna (aka my wonderful puppy) to think to hard about flora. The real truth is that I know diddly about gardening and had no idea where to start. What to plant? What kind of dirt? Seedlings or seeds? Let's call the whole thing off. June started to creep by, day after day, and I was beginning to think I might be off the hook for another year, but last weekend my birthday rolled around and my friend Wendy gave me a terracotta planter with a hefty basil seedling in the middle flanked by two cherry tomato plants. I managed to get it home without killing it, and once set on the deck railing it made the four empty pots and the windowbox look even more forlorn. Monday I was at SBS buying dog stuff; Travvy was about to outgrow his puppy collar and his food supply was getting low. SBS is a gardening center as well as a feed store, so I surreptitiously looked at the plants and pots out front. By then I'd decided that herbs seemed a good thing to have, and maybe some flowers for the windowbox. The plant selection was limited, especially if you were thinking of containers rather than outside beds, and I already had enough pots. I went back inside and picked out some seeds: chives, dill, thyme, and nasturtiums. It was probably too late in the spring to be starting seeds, but if I didn't buy something I'd almost certainly lose my momentum. At the counter I plunked down my seeds, Travvy's new collar, a 20-pound bag of puppy food, and a shrink-wrapped bone for the pupster to gnaw on. Nervously I asked about potting soil -- nervously, because when you don't know diddly about something, apparently simple questions often lead to a daunting array of choices. This wasn't too bad. I bought myself a cubic yard of Cobscook Blend Gardening Soil for outdoor containers and garden beds, which (according to the plastic bag it came in) contains blueberry and salmon compost, old bark, and spaghnum peat. What is salmon compost, and what does it contribute to the soil? I think this might be a gardener's mystery that I'm not ready for yet. It was a busy week, what with horse-sitting and editing and reading the proofs for Mud of the Place, so I managed to put off the search for seedlings. SBS is familiar turf; I'm in there regularly for horse or dog stuff. Dedicated gardening centers, however, are alien territory. Not only do I not know diddly, I can't even fake it. As soon as I open my mouth, it's obvious that I don't speak the lingo and don't have a clue. Well, finally, on Friday afternoon I turned in to Heather Gardens. From State Road Heather Gardens looks like a modest place. Once in the parking lot I knew it was way out of my league -- out back are side-by-side greenhouses, not to mention rows and squares of greenery in the open air. Being in the parking lot was like having one foot in the door; it would have been blatant cowardice to chicken out at that point. I told Travvy, who was curled up in the back of the truck cab, that I'd be back soon. I got out and walked toward the greenhouses. A sign saying "Have a [heart symbol], return your cart" directed my attention to the flatbed wagons that were obviously the garden center's equivalent of shopping carts. Over to the right was a shed identified as "Garden Center / Checkout." Even from this distance I could see signs on the greenhouses: "Geraniums" (who knew geraniums would get a whole house to themselves?), "Houseplants," and, over on the left, "Herbs." OK, I thought; I can figure this out. I can do this. After much wandering around, I had several pots and flats on my wagon: rosemary, dill, Greek oregano, and lemon thyme, two superbells and one superba. These last are flowers. Of the flowers at Heather Gardens I only recognized a handful -- pansies, petunias, morning glories, and, yes, geraniums -- and since I'd ventured this far into alien territory, did I really want to go home with something I'd already heard of? Hell no. So when I saw something I liked the look of, I'd check its ID card. If it specified "Full Sun" and "Easy," it went on the wagon. The superbells are red and purple; the superba is lavender. I drove out of Heather Gardens without making a total fool of myself. Wow. Yesterday morning I borrowed a couple of hand tools from my neighbor, a shovel and a fork thingie for breaking up soil, and went to work up on my deck. Underneath the layer of moss and cobwebs and oak fuzzies, the old soil in the windowbox and the pots looked pretty good. I picked the roots and stuff out, then used it to fill the bottom half of the containers. Into the top half went Cobscook Blend, salmon compost and all, scooped out by hand -- I begin to see why gardening is so popular: it gives an adults an excuse to play with dirt. This went well, though the willowy dill plants seemed a little overwhelmed by the experience. Once in their pots, watered and warmed by the overhead sun, they stood up straight and strong. I am quite impressed by my new little garden. The windowbox is bushy with little flowers and green leafery. Counterclockwise along the deck railing are rosemary, Wendy's planter with the basil and tomatoes, lemon thyme, Greek oregano, and dill. A second pot of dill stands at the northeast corner, in a nice blue pot that's been empty for several years, since the hibiscus that came in it croaked. For good measure I planted seeds in the now-empty flats, nasturtiums in one, chives in the other. We'll see if anything comes up. In the early morning hours it rained. I think the plants are happy.
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