garden grow

Geez, I know!  It's been too long.  I considered giving it up altogether, but I don't want to.  So I thought I'd start with something easy and fun, like Our Wonderful Backyard Garden!  

Our first harvest from our Berkeley garden:  a radish baby!
Radish babies snuggled in the soil. 
Our garden:  still in its infancy.  Including freshly-dug stones, and a bean- and pea-pee.  :-)
Lettuce and mustard. 
Nasturtium volunteers (a.k.a. weeds) sprout instantaneously!  

We have our first harvest of the season: radish babies! And since then, basil, and nasturtium flowers.
Nasturtium grows like weeds around here, which is cool, if you ask me. But just as I'm getting sad that a seed hasn't germinated yet, a nasturtium comes up in the place where the (non-nasturtium) seed was planted! I've started pulling them, if they're in the way, because their umbrella leaves grow so fast, and do a great job of shielding all my seedlings from the sunlight!
Thyme is another thing that grows crazy in this Mediterranean soil and climate. Luckily, I planted that.
It's always an adventure and experiment to start a garden in a totally new bio-region. But we love giving it a go. So far we have learned (too late for this season) that locals plant lots of things in the Fall before the rainy season begins, and then don't have to do anything as the rains and mild weather germinate those seeds for Springtime. Once Spring comes, there is not a drop of rain again till November, and the soil very quickly dries *rock hard*. And we have already been warned that we will have water restriction soon, because the rainy season wasn't as rainy as usual (what's new.). So, it's a learning process, and one that you can't get too hung up on ~ especially since the Farmers' Markets are just a few blocks away! :-)

(*whoa!!* i have looked back at this and had to fix some horribly-inappropriate-for-an-English-Major typos!!  i obviously need some practice!  let's cross our fingers i can keep bloggin'.  it's good for me soul.)