Blah!

Just wrote and lost a long post because of some problem with the network settings on the cell phone. Arrgh! I'll write the main gist again some other time.

Been suffering the effects of gluten ingestion from some tacos I had last night. It sucks being in danger of being poisoned from almost anything you eat. But I'm still better off than people with peanut allergies. I may have health problems but won't die in minutes from it. Count myself lucky.

Temperatures continue to increase and stabilize. One or two more bouts of temps going barely below freezing but the mulch will help the garden get through that. Think I will add more mulch in the next week. What I scattered so far is already settling a lot.

While buying food for dinner, got some spinach seeds at the grocery store. Little more expensive there but don't want to miss a good window for planting. Planted two rows when I got home.

So far, that means several crops are planted. Spinach, broccoli, onions, garlic, three kinds of lettuce, potatoes, some carrots and a little corn. And that only takes up a fraction of the garden capacity. Still lots of garden capacity left.

Like a forest, I'm thinking of the garden as multiple tiers of growth. Every place possible, the garden will be planted with root plants at the lowest level, then low ground crops, maybe intermediate height crops, more hardy tall crops and climbing vines between them all. Tall crops shade shorter crops while shorter crops act as natural living mulch, retaining soil moisture and help stabilize the roots of the tall crops. Overall, I once thought more plants would require more moisture. Now I've learned that denser crop growth decreases moisture loss by limiting the effects of radiation and convection. Conventional farming methods discourage intergrowth of roots but with the right crops, as stated, stabilize each other. I'm sure there will be instances where I overplant and some of the crops suffer. Just have to try and learn as quickly as I can and thin things out as necessary. Though I hate thinning. Sucks to pull out living plants.