11/7/19
(Above: Jacobhouse lighting up the garden on an autumn evening.)
Active Summary: Today, after I went on the morningly ride around the beef pasture with Padre, and after I had completed just a hair over an hour’s worth of creative writing, I decided it was time to plant the garden. Before doing so, I researched all the seeds I had procured (planting depths, spacing, row spacing, and etc). All of them except for the Misato radishes were considered favorable for fall planting.
With all the new information garnered and written on a paper towel, I ventured to the garden where I remained for rest of the morning. There, I pulled up all visible weeds / grass, flattened the row tops with the back of a rake, gently patted the planting areas to firm it up a bit, and then repeatedly poked those planting areas with my forefinger to create little seed-planting holes. This was followed by dropping seeds into those holes and then by gently covering them all with dirt. To finish off the morning, I turned on the watering sprinkler for half an hour to give the seeds an initial ‘dousing’.
(7:06 PM Update:) This afternoon has been productive. I tended to the coming week’s school project, contacted Sprint and found out that I should probably make my way to a Sprint store, helped out on the farm, and even began working on the posts for Jacobhouse’s deck railing.
TIL: Today I learned all sorts of information about planting seeds of various winter garden vegetables. Seeing as it would likely be tedious to post all of what I learned here, (e.g. broccoli planting depth is ½”, kale planting depth is ¼” – ½”, arugula planting depth is ¼” or broadcast, and etc.), I will instead include some exceptionally interesting facts I learned about the vegetables I planted.
- Arugula – also known as roquette – was considered an aphrodisiac by ancient Egyptians and Romans.
- Broccoli has been grown and eaten for many ages (well before the aforementioned Romans), but what I found more interesting is the fact that it used to be grown/eaten for its stem.
- Kale is always delectable, but it becomes sweeter after it has experienced a light frost.
- Salsify… we already know the interesting fact about this plant. Oysters.
- Due to their shallow roots systems, spinach and lettuce seeds can be scattered amidst root vegetables to fill in any gaps.
- Sweet peas were part of an old prophecy that went as so: ‘If a girl finds nine peas in a pod, the next bachelor she meets will become her husband.’ Fortunately, Jacobhouse’s garden has an electric fence around it.
- Many more interesting facts can be found at the Old Farmer Almanac’s official website.
Commentary: Despite the nearby road and its traffic, and in spite of the day’s heat*, the morning’s planting was a very enjoyable affair. I take pleasure in the order to be found within Jacobhouse’s garden, and when planting, I could not help but feel that I was doing ‘good’. No, I don’t mean to say ‘well’ here, even though I believe that to also be the case. By ‘good’, I mean that I was nurturing organisms to grow with the ultimate intention being to provide me (and my family) with delicious, direct, and exceptionally healthy nutriment. I think this was the original intention of farming.
Final Note: Tomorrow, I plan on continuing the construction of Jacobhouse’s deck railing. I’ll first have to determine how to flatten the ends of a few of the posts, and after that, I’ll fasten them to the deck via a single lagbolt. The second lagbolt will be added to the bottom of each post after they are all joined together by the railing.
*The temperature rose to 86 degrees F today.