Backporch Blogging

I am enjoying the beautiful 65 degree temperature.  It's the makings of a perfect Virginia evening.  The sun is setting, I have a glass of Shriaz and this beautiful view.

This weekend my neighbor Megan and I planted flower boxes and a herb garden.

Here you can see my bountiful basil, ravishing rosemary and sumptuous sage. 

On the other side of the porch I have my cantankerous cilantro and magnificent mint. 

You can see I really admire my herbs.  I am so excited to see the plants grow and flourish.  My thrillers and thrilling, my fillers need a little more filling, and my spillers-not yet spilling.  I'm looking forward to what everything will look like two weeks from now - it will be time for their first Miracle-Grow treatment. 

A little back story on Miracle-Grow.  In college I took Organic Vegetable Gardening (along with Plants, Gardening and You as well as Growing Fruit for Fun and Profit - I was almost able to minor in agriculture).  That would be an interesting combo on my resume.  Anyway back to Organic Vegetable Gardening.  I took the class with my two best friends, it was later in the afternoon, so campus parking was lifted - a good thing because the Agriculture College was on the far side of campus.  I had to drop my Principles of Floral Design class due to how far away it was from the main campus - I would have to ride my bike to the class and that was something I was not willing to do!

So we would pull up to the Agriculture building, and head into lecture, then we would go out to the fields to plant and tend our plots.  We had the option of sharing plots with each other, but with bright eyes I told my friends "No, let's all get our own plots, so we can have more vegetables at the end of the semester."  Mistake #1.  It was also my bright idea to pick the plots closest to the road, so we could admire our work as we drove by.  Mistake #2.  My friends and I tilled the land and weeded, preparing to plant our vegetables.  My mistake #2 lead to us having to haul all our equipment from the storage shed to our plots-the furthest away from everything. 

While everyone else in the class had paired up, the three of us were all working our plots on our own.  A favorite pairing of ours were a hippie duo that we named the "young lovers."  As the semester went on, the young lover's vegetables thrived, while ours hardly sprouted.  I do owe my friends to this day because they fertilized my plot while I was at a homecoming pageant rehearsal.  Now, fertilizing in Organic Vegetable Gardening class does not involve Miracle-Grow, no it does not.  Even after our plots were fertilized with the gifts only cows can provide, they were still sad in comparison to the rest of the classes.  And that's when we knew it.  The young lovers must come at night and use Miracle-Grow on their plants.  It's the only way.  Even though I had very little to show after all my efforts in the class, I did learn a lot and even earned an A, we were obviously not graded on if what we planted actually grew. 

I'm hoping to have a little more luck this go around and plan to use my trusty friend Miracle-Grow to help me along the way.