It’s been a glorious day in the garden! I planted six of the tomato plants I started from seed back in March, three pepper plants also started from seed, and I sowed another row of radishes. It’s mid-May, the weather forecast is amazing, and we’re full-on into gardening mode here in the ‘Loops!
What does any of that have to do with fish heads? Well nothing really but, in the absence of fish heads, fish fins and other random fishy parts have stepped in to fill the need.
Last August Gerry returned from a very-successful salmon fishing trip with enough fish to see us through the winter. In fact, we feasted on the last of the frozen salmon last week and I’ve just one more pint of canned salmon on the shelf. When we were filleting the fish last summer, and packaging it up to store away, I saved the fins and other random parts and tucked them in the back of the freezer looking ahead to this year’s garden. Last evening I retrieved them from the freezer and put them in the refrigerator to thaw as today was to be the day I needed them.
This morning, bright and early, I headed down the hill to my community garden plot. The back of my car was filled with assorted gardening paraphernalia, six tomato plants, three pepper plants, a mason jar filled with crushed eggshells I’ve been saving over the winter, a little jar of aspirin, and my fish parts.
The garden was hopping this morning–seems like lots of folks agreed with me that it was a great day to be in the garden!–and it was that!
First order of business was to plant my tomatoes so I removed the heavy-duty tomato cages that Gerry made for me this year from their places marking where I planned to plant. Then I dug deep, very deep holes for each plant and added eggshells, two aspirin, and the fish parts. (I had planned to also add a handful of worm castings but I spread what the worms have gifted me with so far this year over the entire tomato growing area last week instead.)
I covered this concoction with an inch or so of soil and then carefully placed the tomato plant into its new home. Tomato growing season has officially started!
Elsewhere in the garden the lettuce is doing well–especially the Tom Thumb lettuce I started as part of my winter sowing experiment. I’ll definitely be doing that again next year.
The spinach is coming along–despite having been pecked at by a marauding band of migrating birds
My peas are struggling a bit. I’m not sure if its because many tiny shoots were plucked by the same band of migrating birds or if there’s an issue with the soil in this area of the garden. Anyway, I’ve done a second sowing and it seems to be coming along nicely.
All in all, I spent a pleasant and fulfilling couple of hours planting, tending, and enjoying my garden this morning. Sheer bliss!
A few years ago, in 2012, I wrote about the trials of gardening, including my foray into trying to grow tomatoes from seed, on a GLOG (Gardening Blog) I started called A Grandma’s Garden. There’s a lot of photos of the flower and vegetable gardens I had in the Pacific Northwest over there. Pleasant memories, to be sure.
I’ve learned a lot in the years since then and I continue to learn more every year. That’s the joy of gardening–constant learning, trial and error, and a delicious harvest at the end of the season. There’s a lot to love about that!
Now, how ’bout having a quick listen to The Fish Head Song. Who knows? You might end up with that little ditty running around in your head like it is in mine. Sorry ’bout that. 🙂
