Week 2: Hurry Up and Wait.

A week ago we finished our garden and planted our seeds. The next day I went to "Plastic Land" and bought my very first watering can. A little blue one. I felt like a nancy boy. This feeling went away when I loaded the can into the saddlebags of my chopper and drove home making "vroom vroom" noises with my mouth, just to add to the overall manliness. Just in case somebody saw me.

Last week we planted carrots, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, brinjals, courgettes, coriander (for the missus), spinach, and lettuce. The numbers were: one per square of the tomatoes, brinjals and peppers, four per square of the lettuce, courgettes, and spinach, and nine each of onions, carrots and coriander.

So with all that variety in such a small box I started the week full of hope and enthusiasm. How little did I know dear reader. How little did I know.

The first thing I must confess is this: it doesn't smell better. It's still stinky, but only up close. At least the kitchen doesn't smell like a farm yard any more. That said, I do still give my hands a more than usually good scrubbing when ever I touch the soil.

The second thing is: I think we planted the seeds too deep. The packets say one centimetre below the surface. We planted about 2-3 centimetres down. I'm hoping this just means it'll take longer to see the shoots and not that I have killed the garden before it's even begun.

We have been watering once or twice a day, depending on how dry the soil looks.

For the first few days I may have overdone it a smidge.

The top gets really dry, but just under the surface it is nice and moist.

(Look at me pretending I know what the difference is between moist and wet. I have no idea if I am watering these seeds or drowning them. To be honest: this is causing no small amount of anxiety. I will be extremely relieved when the first shoots appear. I may even dance a jig. I'll be sure to add photos.)

So, in a nutshell, week 1 of having a micro garden is pretty boring. It's not a lot of work, but it has caused more than its fair share of anxiety. I find myself standing in the doorway of the kitchen, morning coffee in hand, looking over my mini field devoid of all crops and thinking to myself: "winter is coming."