How does your garden grow?

Here at Casa Cat Creek, our garden grows despite my lack of effort–sometimes. With a job, three kids, the Cat Creek project and regular household chores to attend to, gardening ends up low on the list of priorities. Unfortunately, I know this means I produce less and waste more, as I neglect to weed and water and tie up my poor veggies. But then I think that this garden is supposed to be working for me, and if I have to spend too much time caring for it, it becomes more expensive than it’s worth. So I muddle along doing what I can when I get the chance and settling for good enough.

Yesterday I got the chance. The weather was perfect and mother in law had offered to take Little Miss for a walk, so I spent a couple of hours preparing the garden for planting. It’s early yet for putting out seedlings, but my garlic was up and being crowded by grass, and I wanted to get some cool-weather seeds planted, but before I could, I needed to clear out all the weeds. I pulled the bigger weeds, discovered a volunteer onion and a volunteer garlic left over from last year, and sowed some seeds. I also edged around the outside of the garden frame to give the morning glory a bit of a setback, and here’s how it looked when I was done:

No, this is not the most attractive garden ever built! Top right quadrant is garlic. Bottom left has a stray garlic and an onion. I added cilantro seeds in there, too. Bottom right has lettuce, kale, beets, radicchio and radishes. That top left quadrant will be for Rupert’s hot peppers.

Little Miss also did a little bit of this before MIL arrived:

I started photographing my first pieces, and now have incontrovertible proof that photography is not my forte. I may hire my mother, but here is a teaser of what is to come.