It is a wonder that I have the right to claim to be a gardener. I keep telling myself that one day, I'll get serious about this gardening business and do it 'the right way'. In the meantime, I continue to compulsively and impulsively dig up sections of soil and haphazardly throw seed down or shove mangled roots of some sort into holes.

Today, I finally planted my fall garden. If I can call it a garden. This week, in the middle of the excitement of getting footings poured for the house, we managed to string up some fencing to keep the chickens (and deer?) out of the 'garden'. As I put the finishing touches on the fencing, I had to laugh at the tiny little plot I had prepared as a temporary garden. (You should see the magnificent one I have in my head... laid out in a couple terraces above the pond, surrounded by a quaint wood and wire fence similar to the one I saw in a This Old House magazine.) Anyway, today I planted (in square-foot-and-a-half patches) some Romaine lettuce, spinach, cilatro, carrot, and radish seed (always plant radish). These were seed choices left in my collection I thought I might see some results from this fall.

I have yet to eat a tomato out of my own garden this year. The chickens have pecked mercilessly at any fruit showing a hint of red, and bugs have done their share of damage as well. I still have hope that I will get a chance to eat at least one tomato from the five surviving plants.