Tag Archives: Oklahoma gardening

My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: “The Shadow” Voice is Haunting Me!

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Somewhere under this blanket of ice are several new veggie sprouts!

This morning I was awakened at 5:50 a.m. by a text message tone: “Be safe. Get to work when you can. Late is okay. Jeans ok.”

My blurry vision sent the message to my tired brain. This was followed by my body bolting upright and me running into the bathroom to grab my robe. “Get robe, get robe, get robe…okay, get slippers, get slippers, get slippers…”

I was still tying the belt on my bathrobe when I made it to the window in my office and peered outside. Thunder, lightening, rain, snow and sleet. As I identified each type of precipitation coming down at the same time I was thinking, “Cool.” Then I thought, “Oh No! What about my teeny tiny little sprouts?”

I’m pretty sure I have beets and lettuce coming up, and possibly radishes.

Into my head flashed this vision:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJyWcUS9RIM]

I could hear the creepy narrator voice saying, “Who knows what evil lurks beneath the layers of ice? Only the Shadow knows…BWAH-HA-HA-HAAAAAAaaaa!”

I hastily posted a Facebook message (paraphrased): “I sure hope my little sprouts come through this!”

Friends hastily responded: “They’re Okies, they’ll do fine.” And, “They’re safe under the blanket of ice.”

I took a deep breath, sighed, tried to relax. For about 15 seconds… Continue reading My Little Victory Garden: “The Shadow” Voice is Haunting Me! →

My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: A Gal Can Only Wait So Long…

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For two weeks I’ve been dropping hints to Mick:

I was wondering if you might be in the mood to till my garden? It’s almost time, ya know.

Hey, so what exactly would need to be done in order for you to till my garden? Do you need oil or spark plugs or anything?

I was thinking…if I got the rototiller out of the shed and pulled it up to the patio, would that help you with tilling my garden?

A gal can only wait so long.

So what if it’s still two weeks before I should really be planting my early spring veggies? And so what if I have to go out to the garden every few evenings in February because my seeds have germinated, my tiny sprouts have started, and a cold snap is in the forecast? And so what IF every brain cell in my head knows that I really should wait just a bit more before feeling the soft earth in my hands and obsessively spacing my tiny seeds just so? Like Rafiki said to Simba in “The Lion King,” – It is TIME.

Therefore today was the day that I got down on my knees and worked every nook and cranny of My Little Victory Garden. No weed had a chance; they were all pulled up, every single root.

I paid homage to the grasshopper skeletons I found. I apologized to the cricket family for disrupting their home while thanking them for the reworked soil. I pulled as many oak leaves from the ground as I could find so as not to induce my seedlings with too much tannic acid. I carefully dug up the last three carrots and the four green onions, moved my purple sage, and transplanted my Gilly flowers. And then I smiled…and went to find my husband.

And this is what he did:

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So I could do this:

Continue reading My Little Victory Garden: A Gal Can Only Wait So Long… →

My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: Al Eschbach, Radishes and Beer

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I’m writing this post with a healthy dose of dirt under my fingernails.  I just came from my garden, having discovered that my newly planted lettuce is now in the sprout stage.  The chard and spinach remain elusive, but I’m hoping another few good weather days will influence them to come up as well.  Today’s work included planting carrots, peas and a multitude of red and yellow onions.  I was thinking about how this would be the first year I abstained from planting white onions when my next door neighbor wanders over and says hello:

“Hi, neighbor!”

“Hey friend, how ARE you this fine, fine Sunday afternoon?”

“Good, now that my onions are planted.  I have reds and whites, but no yellows.”

“Hmmmmm…I have reds and yellows, but no whites.”

“So, we’re trading white and yellows, then, right?”

“Ex-ACT-ly.”

This Sunday afternoon banter along the retention wall between our two properties is a constitutional tenet.  It’s as much a part of our female connection as the “Hi ho, neighbor!” call is between our husbands.  If we’re outside in the same vicinity, we speak. Or wave. Or nod.  Today we spoke.  But then, came something extra.

“I just pulled up the remainder of my winter garden and have too many radishes.  Would you like a few?”

Al Eschbach: Photo retrieved from The Lost Ogle, June 2, 2011 post.

My antennae rose as I thought about the possibilities.  “Sure!” I replied.  Then, “radishes…radishes…radishes…”  My mind quickly whirled while I considered the possibilities.  And then the answer came to me.  In the back of my mind, I’ve always wanted to try Al Eschbach’s favorite food combination.  I surmised that TODAY must be that experimental opportunity.

I did some quick research to find out all the nuances I could about Eschabach’s food love and discovered a few things: