Look at my melons.

When Bubba and I were at AIDS Walk on Sunday, I nearly tore myself off my bike mid-pedal (with the clip-ins, so it would have been messy) to get at a painfully cute Aussie puppy trotting along with its owners.

Seriously, I cried out. I made grabby hands. The puppy cut across in front of the lucky soul walking him to come toward my magnetic grabby hands. It was very nearly one of those cheesy reunite-y moments where violins play in the background.

Except I stayed on my bike (fucking pedals) and settled for making squeaky I LOVE YOU PUPPY noises in his direction and then probably (definitely) said something like, "Bubb! Did you see that puppy?? How fucking cute is he anyway?!" because I'm very classy and that is what you yell at the top of your lungs when impressionable children and drag queens dressed in leathers are right there.

Bubba, however, was halfway up the hill I was ignoring during my puppy loving moment and didn't hear me. Or, perhaps he didn't want to admit that he was associated with the psycho puppy chasing girl on the orange bike with the paper crown taped to her helmet.

Though, I'm not sure why.

Psycho.

Anyway, I told you that to tell you this: When I saw the first watermelons making their appearance on the vines later that day, I made the same squeaky I LOVE YOU PUPPY noises except I probably (definitely) said something like, "BUBB! Come look at my big melons!"

And then I think I heard my neighbor laughing.

So, that's how my maternal instinct plays out. Some people get all squeaky for human babies, I lose my shit over puppies and watermelons. Plus, it's always fun to make reference to big melons. It's half the reason I grow melons. The other reason is I don't know what. So that Bubba can make reference to my nice big melons, I suppose.

Though for now, the melons are small babies. But WHOA CRAP there are a lot of them. I haven't grown watermelons in a few years and I don't really remember how many babies would appear on the vines, but this one Moon and Stars plant, which was planted at random between the other two melons I was sure were going to die (and are now, of course, totally alive), probably has around a dozen babies on it right now.

Maybe I should have a baby shower. I could go for some cake.

Not really sure what we'd do with a dozen watermelons.

In other Baby Watermelon news: look at the Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumbers that look like super tiny watermelons.

Though you won't hear me shrieking, "Bubba! Come look at my super tiny melons!" because that would be contradictory. And I'm nothing if not consistent in my overly loud backyard proclamations.

Instead I think I'll yell something about pickles. Because my plan is to pickle these little weird things and give them as little weird pickled gifts come the holidays. If we don't eat them all first because WHOA can we eat some pickles.

And that is as far into that rabbit hole as I'm prepared to go.

To change the subject to something less lascivious, I've been updating the Garden Tracker (which also lives on the left side, there) and wouldn't you know that we crossed Zero Barrier (Dorks unite. Thank you.) a while back and we're well into Not a $64 Tomato territory.

In fact, we're into the black to the tune of $100+ dollars, so that's good news given we have an untold number of watermelons, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and tomatillos yet to ripen and tip the scales ever farther into Cents Per Pound territory.

Last year I closed out the season with my investment of $91.34 reaping me hundreds of pounds of produce (literally, 273.98 lbs) for a value of $.33/lb.

This year, because I'm a psycho that way, I want to beat that. I want to come in with a value of $.32/lb or less. Perhaps I'm just missing having a running goal to bang on about, but I nearly called it a Sub-30 goal.

Wow. I've said too much.

A different kind of fun with watermelons. You know what I'm talking about. Nasty.

In case you're not already convinced that Bubba and I are complete freaks when left unsupervised in our own home, we're now trying to grow a square watermelon.

Why?

Hmmm...why NOT?

Our thinking is this - we have a lot of watermelons on the plants right now and they grow into weird shapes on their own so why not try to create a shape that would be useful or at least emulate a shape that is useful for melons in foreign countries.

WHAT?

Yeah, I know. It sounds like something a crazy person might say. And to that I say, "Welcome!"

We're a bit mad over here, this is true.

Basically, Bubba saw a square watermelon for sale for $100 in Japan once and never could get it out of his head. I guess the idea was that it fit super efficiently into small Japanese refrigerators and the Japanese are so watermelon hungry while also being so strapped for refrigeration space that they'll throw down a C-note for a melon. Well, then he started dating a gardener and eventually married her and every year she grew watermelons he made some vague reference to, "wouldn't it be cool if we grew square watermelons and then sold them for $100?"

In case you're not good at following along or have ended up here unbeknownst to your own self, *I* am that gardener and now we're growing square watermelons.

No, really.

To be clear, by "growing" I mean that there was a medium sized watermelon growing all normal and round on the vine and then we sneaked a box (hand built by Bubba to his future melon's specifications) under its rear end in the hopes that it would grow out to the box's boundaries and then begin to grow to fill the box's square shape.

Super normal looking, except for the box.

Well, as fucked up as that all sounds, it appears to be working.

I believe this is called "growing to fit one's boundaries".

So, once we saw that the melon would grow to the shape of the box and then HOLY it continued also growing taller - nearing the top of the box - Bubba built a lid for it so that it would be square all the way around and not just on its sides.

Yep. This is what giant children do when left to entertain themselves.

So, now we have a watermelon growing - hopefully into a square shape - inside of this box in our yard. I have no idea if this is going to work or if we're just going to have a box filled with watermelon goo when we unscrew the lid, but I guess we'll see.

For now, I just look through the peep hole on the top and hope to not see anything gross or suspicious looking.

I feel sort of rude always looking in the hole. Is that weird?

I'm not sure if we'll do anything special with the square melon, in the event that it turns out to actually grow into a square shape and be edible, but I imagine we'll take photos to show you guys and then probably slice it open to see if the actual watermelon flesh grew also into a square.

Though I sort of doubt that part. But can you imagine if it did? Super fun!

I also bet we'll put it in our fridge just to enjoy the experience of having a super efficiently shaped melon to look at when we go in there for tonic. And for whoever it was that was worried about the chemicals in my Diet Tonic, I just want to say that I don't know what's in my Diet Tonic and I don't care because I've spent up all my Caring energy on avoiding crazy ass shit that's in produce, beef, eggs and chicken. So, until there's a FDA recall on Diet Tonic, I'm not going to strain myself.

And, hey, I don't drink soda aside from the Diet Tonic that goes into my cocktails (for fear of the Fatness, don't forget), so I'm ingesting only a tiny percentage of the chemicals that most Americans take in during the course of a normal day. This makes me feel better about this decision of mine anyway.

Oh, and if you're for some reason wondering whether we're going to try to actually sell a watermelon for $100 - no. We're not. Though we're open to offers.

Team Melons - you're effed.

DONG.

I say, "Dong" ever time I find a new cucumber on the plants. Or when I see a cucumber I've seen before on the plants. Or when I weigh one and it weighs almost half a pound. Or when Bubba walks around naked.

Because it's all dick jokes and gin cocktails around here, friends.

DONG.
(Because of the cucumber garnish.)(GET THERE FASTER, PEOPLE.)

But seriously, Team Melons, you're looking a bit effed right now. And by, "effed", I mean SUPER FUCKED because your melons are moving slow as shit and the cucumbers have already put out two dongs. Even though the first one was the size of my thumb because it's one of those sour gherkin types that old Jews like pickled. Also, young Jews do, too. And naked gentiles!

Look, every strange niche audience loves kosher sour dill pickles, regardless of their size.

Also, I believe these audiences (and possibly others, though I can't speak for mainstream society because, obviously.) also enjoy watermelons. Which is unfortunate because the likelihood that we're going to see a lot of those this year, enough to feed the masses of freaks who love these fruits, is awfully slim.

Yeah. And this is the BIG one. EFFED.

It's not been hot enough for the watermelons, so they're not even putting out flowers yet. It's basically sad in the melons department. Like, they're alive, but they've clearly decided to rest on their laurels and just amuse passersby with stories of years passed, when they were big and abundant and being forced into too-small boxes against their will.

It was a glorious time of produce abuse to be sure. And they're really riding that gravy train. As though it will even get close to making up for their below average performance this year.

DOUBTING IT.

We'll see. Maybe temps will warm up and the melons will pick up the pace. Maybe the nasturtium will get the hell out of the way and let the melons drive. Maybe Bubba will walk out to the garden in the nude and give the watermelons some motivation to get to work.

...because obviously melons are motivated by things that look like cucumbers...YES! You get it.

...because Bubba usually walks around our yard nude while carrying cucumbers...YES! That's exactly what I meant.

I love how intuitive you guys are.

So yeah, that's the update on the bitter rivalry between boobs and dicks in my garden. Dicks - 2, Melons - 0.

Now I'm going to go spend the weekend with Africankelli, if you don't mind, because this gal really needs some girlfriend time and also a lot of drinks.

I can sometimes use my anal retentive powers for good. Sometimes.

Every fall, for as long as I've done the gardening, has been all, "OH SAD. It's fall. The garden is over. I shall perish." and shit.

I believe I've even threatened people and you with death or a sound face beating for mentioning the forthcoming of fall before I've deemed it time.

There have been rants and specific fingers thrown up in protest of fall.

Because I love the summer garden.

Because, duh.

I love the tomatoes and the harvesting of a billion green beans and making pickles from the never ending supply of cucumbers sproinging off the plants and the watermelons taking over all reaches of the property and having to dodge crazed bees while scooping Jada's doots and losing most of the walkways around the garden because of ever-reaching vines and looking at the crispifying nasturtium when temps go into the 90s and putting up shade cloth to keep fruit from sunburning and refilling the bees' waterer every day because they're sucking it down while trying to make honey meanwhile not die from the extreme heat and remembering to water and care for the potted plants that I knew better than to plant but in spring time I can't be trusted with orphaned seedlings so I just put them in a pot because "OH I CAN'T LET A SEEDLING GO INTO THE COMPOSTER even though I totally don't have room for it so I'll just put it in a pot and totally remember to water and care for it just like the other plants" and oh wait some of that stuff is not fun.

Hi. May I use that walkway or bench? Oh no. No I may not.

Ah, volunteer tree sunflowers propped up with scrap lumber. That's classy.

Why yes, it has been hot. Thanks for noticing.

Really have no idea why I let this dill just grow wild and awkward except that I can't make it down this path to prune it.

Green beans - the awkward months.

So sunflowers, tomatoes and green beans, you're just going to grow all together then? OK, got it.

Don't worry tiny supposed to be manageable watermelons, I don't need to walk there IN THE WALKWAY or anything.

Nah. I don't need that bench. You use it, cucumber bullies.

Yeah. That's what I meant for you to do, tomatillos. Just grow wherever the hell you like and everywhere at the same time.

As it turns out, there are things about the summer garden that are annoying as fuck.

Because, as you well know, I'm anal retentive as fuck.

And things like crispy plant leaves, never ending watering tasks, vines growing all over the place and in my way as I try to navigate my way to the never ending watering tasks and potted plants getting chewed to shit by monsters that settled in while I was absolutely not paying attention get fucking annoying when you're super anal retentive and like things neatly and tidily growing to perfection.

So I *don't* remember to take care of the potted plants that I plant in spring? Oh right.

Within the confines of their pre-determined-by-me space. With the luster and vigor of young plants. In the mild and agreeable weather of spring.

The spring garden looks awesome, is what I'm saying. It's just the way I'd like the garden to always look because when you're as anal retentive and Type A and batshit crazy as I happen to be, having a garden that's growing green, healthy and within the lines is GOOD and promise of the food to come is GOOD and the not-a-huge-time-taking-mess is GOOD.

Sunflower at a size where, if I were a smart person, I could still transplant it elsewhere.

Cucumbers INSIDE the beds.

Yes, tomatillo. I prefer you like this. AKA - NOT EVERYWHERE.

No wayward branches just needing to be tied up RIGHT NOW OR ELSE? Yes. I like this.

Which is why I've decided/realized/finally-come-to-peace-with-the-fact fall is GOOD.

WHAT THE FALL?

Yeah. After all these years of being all DON'T YOU DARE SAY FALL UNTIL IT'S, LIKE, NOVEMBER, YOU SHITBITCHING ASS BASTARDS, I've changed my mind.

You can say fall. Shit - you can say it in August for all I care. I just did, anyway.

Because if fall's coming then it means I can clean up the damn garden and reset it to Awesome.

I can take down the volunteer sunflowers that have grown into trees, getting into my way every time I go out to look for watermelons.

It's a good thing you're so cute.

I can rip out the tomatillos that grew 8 feet tall, had to be reined in by multiple means and then fell over and cascaded freely all over the place any way as though to taunt me with their growing-all-over-the-place power.

That's a start.

I can dial back my watering tasks to once a week and finally toss that potted tomato plant that I had no business growing in the first place even though its tiny fruits are really quite tasty and it turned out to be the perfect tomato plant to grow in a pot, in case you're in the market for one next spring and you're a person that can grow shit in a pot without leaving it for the caterpillars to demolish.

The nasturtium will bounce back and not look like total fried shit anymore.

Mmm...not fried shit.

I can clear my walkways and not have to circumnavigate the globe to get back to my spying chair.

So what you're saying is that no, I may not go back to the chair? Got it.

I can maybe see the beehive again from the patio.

Yeah. Not just yet.

And I can have NEW plants that are green and healthy and living within the confines of their raised beds like good little crops with their promise of food to come.

One day you'll be huge and crazy, but now...now you're just awesome and new.

So, yeah - I'm totally using my anal retentive powers for good now. In order to be not depressed by the summer's end times approaching, I'm choosing to instead be glad that I can clean this place up and have new little green plants to stare at.

Bonus is that I can do this WHILE eating all of the summer's stuff because I'm a fucking traitor like that.

Who's to say who's effed and who's not? Clearly, not me.

I should really be posting a tutorial for lip balm right now, I know.

It's just that the whole lip balm situation really revolves around my desire to berate the lip balm recipe havers of the Internet for putting up the most annoyingly vague and useless recipes and I can't very well do effective berating if I, myself, am not posting a useful not-vague recipe myself.

I think you'd agree.

Anyway, while I'm not vague or useless (quiet, you), I am sometimes forgetful. In the sense that I forgot the handwritten recipe I hand wrote for myself as I was mixing up this batch of lip balm (and then remixing it and remelting it and, well, you'll see when I write it up) up in Tahoe and so I can't give you the recipe right now.

Although I *could* give you the rant against the dim hippies who wrote up all the useless and vague lip balm recipes on the Internet right now. Because that part comes real easy. As you know.

So, instead of wrapping my rant around a fabulously NOT-vague or useless recipe for a lip balm you *might* use -- Melons.

More specifically - an update on the Adopt a Crop Team Melons vs Team Cucumbers situation.

Remember how I was all, "Oh Team Melons, you're totally effed" and shit, like back in July?

Who's effed now?

Er...that proclamation may have been premature.

I mean, not that one melon, even one that can grow from this:

I'm adorable.

to this:

I'm obscene.

in one week can break the cucumbers' lead or anything, but when the melons do that meanwhile the cucumbers do this:

Wait? We're cucumber plants? We'd forgotten. We were busy being pathetic losers.

it's safe to say, at least, that Team Melons is not as effed as they seemed to be back in July.

Though, it's true that I've harvested approximately 2 lbs of cucumbers so far and 0 lbs of watermelons, I'm fairly certain that the melon you see plumping up on the vine up there weighs more than 2 lbs and that cucumber plant you see rapidly shitting the bed up there is going to produce about five more minutes' worth of cucumbers before it shrivels up and gives me the finger once and for all.

So any greatness the cucumbers might have enjoyed a month ago might be wiped away in one felled twisting of a watermelon from the vine in a month or so.

OR that watermelon may meet an untimely death at the hands of a nasty creature (this happens sometimes even in the depths of suburbia where we happen to live. We call these happenings "raccoons" and I don't want to talk about it.) and Team Cucumbers could be back firmly holding the lead.

A pathetic 2 lb lead that does not put pickles in the jar, so to speak.

In the sense that it hasn't put any pickles in the jar yet. Because I canned pickles on vacation and they shriveled up into depressing little brown turds in the jar because I *might* have miscalculated our actual elevation and then I *might* have over processed them according to elevation instructions for, like, the Swiss Alps or something.

My pickles came out looking like shits floating in a jar, people, it was sad.

So, yeah, no pickles yet. And only 2 lbs of cucumbers. And 0 lbs of watermelons. And cucumber plants that look about as pathetic as you can imagine while still, somehow, remaining vaguely alive. And one watermelon plant that still hasn't produced a single viable fruit and barely any leaves.

But at least we have the craziest volunteer sunflowers ever.

12 feet tall. Who knew sunflowers could get 12 feet tall? I did not.

This bee got light headed flying to reach it.

The zoom was all the way extended to get this shot.

So, yeah, the drama continues in the garden. Melons staging a comeback, cucumbers quietly dying a tragic crispy brown death, sunflowers towering over the garden like some sort of otherworldly being where I can't prune them to make a stunning bouquet and tomatoes doing what tomatoes always do in the garden.

Go fucking bonkers.

I think if I were to really think hard about who's effed around here, I'd probably say it was me. Or the canner. Because we're both going to have to get really effing busy if we want to keep up.

It's not the worst problem to have. 

Adopt a Crop Update: Team Cuke Officially Effed. Rematch in 2012.

It's officially over, Adopt a Croppers - Team Melons has won out by a pitiful pathetic margin over the pitiful and pathetic cucumbers.

These two crops this year - they wicked sucked. Though the melons only marginally less so than the cucumbers.

I'm cute, but we didn't measure for cuteness.

Final tally:
Cucumbers - 3.97 lbs
Melons - Something vaguely over 4.84 lbs
Total - 8.81

Yeah, this year was not a good one for the cucurbit family in NorCal.

Unless you like to cuddle tiny melons. In which case, this was your year.

How not good, you ask? Well, run your eyes over last year's totals:
Cucumbers -  17.8 lbs
Melons - 68.63 lbs
Total - 86.43 lbs

Wow - a 77.62 lb difference. Yikes and LAME.

Though, the melons are still technically in the ground with one softball sized fruit lingering on its withering vines, so who knows, the melons may crest the big five pound hurdle before all's told. Hooray.

A watermelon the size of a tomato. Yeah - well done, watermelons. Pfft.

So, with Adopt a Crop done and the garden coming down in stages, there's only one thing left to do - send a random garden-type prize unrelated to the mostly failed Adopted Crop to some random and marginally lucky commenter. That could be you!

You could be marginally lucky and the recipient of some random things!

Hooray? Yeah - hooray - because this year the randomness is also accompanied by Be My Seed Saving Buddyness.

What thuh?

Yeah, because I've decided that this year's finally the year in which I save seeds from the garden to plant next year so I can be all full circle-y, the Adopt a Crop winner will receive a sampling of seeds saved from this year's garden via the methods I've shared/will be sharing in my quest to undertake my 100th hobby: seed saving.

Also, probably some jam, pickles, relish, salsa, tomatoes or other preserved item from my garden and pillagings and probably some other random shit, too. It might even be garden related. Though it won't be anything derived from this year's watermelon or cucumber crops. Sorry.

Because we've eaten them all. Because there were only, like, three.

Sound good? Great.  

Leave a comment here by 10/15/11 and I'll announce the winner shortly thereafter and then send out the prize. 

FYI to you potential winners: If I announce you as the winner and you don't claim your shit, I'm giving it to someone else. And that person might not be randomly chosen. They may just be someone I like a lot or someone who posts a picture of a cute dog or my neighbor who's never even seen the blog.

Oh I am just drunk with the power of If You Don't Like It, Then Suck It right now. Phew!

But on a less bitchy note - I have a post coming very soon detailing these seed saving exploits, including how I'm going to set up the Cucumber VS Watermelons rematch in 2012.


Look forward to iiiiiiiiit.

Part 1 in Soil Testing: This sounds boring.

Is it just me or does the process of soil testing seem like a swift pain thy ass?

See. I knew it. It does. Seem like it.

And, to be truthful, it is. But it's so worth it. At least it's proven to be worth it for the past few years that I've been doing it.

But, for whatever reason, I've gotten a lot of questions about this soil testing stuff despite its boring outward appearance, so rather than give you all random answers when you email me all separate like, I thought I'd offer up my soil testing process and experience here so you know what I'm doing back there when I say I'm doing The Science known as soil testing.

Be warned though, this is just how I do it. So, probably, it's not 100% perfect or right or legal or PC or safe to show children under 13 or feed to your gremlin after midnight and so on. So, like, don't get all, "That's not how you do that, Finny!" because I'll just be, like, "Um, actually, that's exactly how I do it, so stow it." and all.

You know how I am.

But really, I do want to share with you the importance of soil testing and the process by which a normal human person does it so that, if you have the yearning in your soul to do so, but have always felt like OH MY GAWD THIS SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE you can know that it is, in fact, not impossible at all and that you can totally do it because, hello, dummy over here can do it, so there you go.

Right?

Let me paint a picture for you:

Once upon a time five or so years ago, Bubba and I moved into this house. This house did not have any vegetable garden to speak of, but it did have a big blank canvas of weeds from which I could dutifully carve a few raised beds for the requisite tomatoes and watermelons that spread out to take over the entire property and move in our neighbors' domain.

Into these two 3'x8 beds, which - let's not kid ourselves - were built by Bubba's talented hands, I poured a 50/50 mixture of garden soil and compost and then proceeded to plant with two tomatoes, some cucumbers and, from what I can recall based on its final growth, the world's most ambitious watermelons.

These plants grew and grew until I was afraid that we'd be lost forever under a sea of vining melons and tomato shrubbery.

It was a glorious time and much produce was had by all.

Then fall came and I took down the waning plants and constructed what we called, Mini Moffett, out of small gauge wire fencing and a lot of stabs in the hand, for a Winter Garden. Keep in mind that I'd never had a full fledged Summer Garden before these two beds, so a Winter Garden was just me being ridiculously over-ambitious and, I'll say it, a little cocky in the way of gardening.

Anyway, Mini Moffett went up successfully - again thanks to much help by Bubba's talented hands - and off I went merrily, and naively I might add, into the deep and murky waters of winter gardening. I think I grew somethings along the lines of carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and who knows what else.

It went fine. I didn't get a ton of stuff out of it, but it was winter and I wasn't expecting too much - just a year round garden that's all.

When winter finally passed and it was time to start thinking tomatoes again, I promptly tore out what was remaining of the winter crap (by March, anything remaining in the garden is considered by me to be crap), and went ahead just slamming new plants into the ground. Things like tomatoes and squash and things.

To say that summer crop went badly is to understate things greatly.

Firstly, the squash bugs arrived. And they devastated my squashes and melons and cucumbers the likes of which I've never seen. They even took down a mighty pumpkin and for that I will never, and have NOT, forgiven them.

Then, OH THEN, my tomatoes sucked ass. I don't know what their deal was but they just didn't do much. I mean, yes, I got some tomatoes, but nothing on the order of the previous year's bounty. And, come to think of it, plants from which I'd seen a huge success the previous year (cucumbers, peas) were also sucking asses.

Even though they were planted in the same spots as the year before, in the same soil conditions, same sun conditions, same water, same same same...

Let's let that last part sink in.

SAME.

That's when it dawned on me.

OH - Hi, have we read Grapes of Wrath? Haven't we heard of the Dust Bowl? Crop rotation? Soil depletion? Completely uneducated garden asses running amok planting crap without paying attention to the most important thing - the soil?

Yeah. Despite my best intentions, which really just focused on making tomatoes happen year after year, I'd neglected the most crucial part of the garden - the soil.

I'd made the same mistakes that they made back when we started raping the Midwest for crops every year without moving the crops around or amending the soil. I just went on planting as though the soil was going to replenish itself after giving everything it had to my little plants' roots all summer and winter and summer again.

RUDE.

I'm so rude sometimes.

And so, that is when I decided it was time to suck it up and test the soil.

Like, really sit down with the test kit (order capsule refills here) and a pencil and paper (can you believe those things still exist?) and water and capsules and a dropper and everything, and see where we stood with the condition of the soil.

Y'all - it was not pretty. In fact, it sucked ass pretty hard. I had sucked the life out of the soil by putting plants in season after season without adding anything back. I felt like a horse's ass. And a bit mean. And quite retarded.

So, with my shitty test results in hand (oh, high school - how I've missed thee), I marched off to the hardware store/nursery/place where you can get keys made to buy the amendments suggested on the soil test kit.

Which is when I ran into Awkward and Confusing Moment #783 - What is Muriate of Potash anyway and, my, that doesn't sound organic and healthy at all. Something about the word "muriate" made me nervous. Maybe because it sort of sounds like, "urinate"? I don't know. Well, turns out that it's, in fact, quite scary. Like, it's the 3rd drug (potassium chloride) in the three drug cocktail they use for lethal injection executions.

Yay! Let's grow our food in this!

No.

So, even though I was at the store with the intention of buying the soil amendments listed on the soil test kit to "fix" my soil, and I hate to go to the hardware store and not leave with every single thing on my list (we'll get into our reputation at the hardware store another time), I turned around and went home - to do some research.

See, despite all the "just use MiracleGro" advice I was getting, I still wanted to do this up all organic-like. I didn't want bizarre pee-sounding chemicals all soaked up in my food, doing untold damages to myself and the soil and the bugs and things. I didn't know exactly what would come from Miraculously Growing our vegetables, but I really didn't want to find out.

And, fine, I was being an obstinate hippie about it. FINE. Say the words, it doesn't hurt my feelings. I *do* live in California after all. Whatever.

Well, after some research online and with other organic gardeners and me mum and the good old Rodale's Guide to Organic Gardening, I found that I could amend soil with things that didn't involve horrifying chemicals that are 1/3 of the magic behind snuffing out our unsavory citizens.

I also found that a lot of these things were really fucking confusing (soybean meal). Or hard to find (feather meal). Or sort of ridiculous to source based on the small amounts I would need (well-rotted horse manure).

So, what I ended up with were the following:

To amend for nitrogen, I overwinter the beds with either fava beans or nasturtium, and then use organic dried blood to bring the measurements up to snuff.

To amend for phosphorus, I use organic bone meal.

To amend for potash, I use a combination of wood ash from our fireplace and this E.B. Stone Sure Start mix that includes the illusive feather meal as well as other organic ingredients that aren't creepy like muriate of potash.

I also started composting leaves, clippings and kitchen scraps so I could side dress the plants with the homebrew once they were established and during the winter when the beds were sitting around doing nothing.

Which is mostly what they do now in the winter, nothing. Because I am still so scarred by that total garden devastation summer to go whole hog back into a winter garden - testing or not. Though I did put some garlic and peas in the ground this winter and I'm really hoping it doesn't come back to bite me in the ass.

But you know that I've tested that bed already, and as soon as I tear out the garlic (soon, so soon), I will amend it appropriately, give it a neem oil bath for horrible insects and plant up its healthy soil with this year's allotment of black tomatoes, tomatillos, jalapenos and cilantro.

But, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We still have to test. Next time I'll show you how I do that.

Know that as I go through this, however, that this is how *I* do this, so it's not all professional and official and shit. This is just *my* way of gardening as organically and healthfully I can with the brainpower, resources and patience at my disposal with the goal of harvesting as many tomatoes as our mouths can handle in a year long period. Which, incidentally, is a lot.

So, just take that as you will. And then test your soil because, really, it's worth it.

Next time, step-by-step testing. Which, WOW, sounds boring. Sorry.

Part 2
Part 3