Pilgrim's Ponderings

  A few weeks ago I went to buy Lettuce plants from a lady who had grown them from seed. When I arrived she had these four healthy looking small Lettuce plants all ready for me to take. Now these could not be characterized as baby plants – they would probably have been in their tweens or teens. They had nice strong leaves which were this bright vivacious green and were absolutely beautiful. I asked for any Lettuce growing advice she may have and she very graciously gave me few tips and tricks. A little over a month before buying these from her I had built a little raised bed and had filled it with a good mix of soil and compost and had been deciding what I would grow in this space. So on this day I very excitedly took the baby plants home and got busy planting them in their new little home. When it was all done it looked wonderful and I was looking forward to some great Lettuce. By the end of that same day however, the leaves began to look a lot less healthy. Over the next few ...

  I am new to gardening and all things green. The experiment began with Cress, which is possibly the easiest thing to grow. The feeling of success propelled me to greater heights in this little gardening project and now we have quite a few more interesting things in our garden. One such plant is the simple French bean or the green bean. I bought a bunch of seedlings from someone and planted them in my own backyard. In case you do not know much about French beans, they are a vining plant. This means as they grow they climb up a support structure. So I got some bamboo canes and built a little wigwam (conical structure) for them to climb. I had also read that these young saplings are prone to bird attacks and particularly pigeons, of which our garden seems to have an abundant supply. So I bought some green netting and covered the wigwam with it to ensure no pesky pigeon made a breakfast of my little experiment.   The seedlings grew to plants and began their interesting climb....