My lettuce has sprouted in two crooked, clumpy rows. That’s the good news — half of the tomato plants are barely standing upright, the green fading to yellow on some of the leaves, and in the rest of my garden nothing else but the odd blade of grass and thistle has poked a stem above the surface. The signs of life in Plot 32 are not encouraging: about what you would expect given the level of expertise with which I began.

On the other hand, there are gorgeous signs of life in most of the other allotments. Gardens that are as much art as science, both executed brilliantly.

I would like to introduce you to Plot 16. It belongs to John, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on my way out of the gardens one evening (you have to walk past Plot 16 on your way in or out of the allotments). John’s garden is (a) built up with deep, weed-free, well-composted soil; (b) laid out in squares for easy access to the plants, interspersed with planks where people can walk without disturbing the soil; and (c) lovely to look at, with its architectural precision, colourful plant markers and even marigolds in the corners.

The marigolds, apparently, have a scientific purpose: they attract the kind of insects, John tells me, that will prevent other insects from eating the vegetables. Brilliant pesticide-free technique. But the science is beautiful to look at as a bonus.

So this is how it’s supposed to be done!

John not only was gracious enough to visit this blog (see the comments below from “The Serf”), but generously gave me the title of a book that he used as a resource when he was getting started: Square Foot Gardening. Its subtitle is something about how to garden “in less space with less work”, but I have to tell you, from the way that Plot 16 looks, I think John has put in a huge amount of work!

My Dad would read seed catalogues in the winter. I will have to read that book.

The air was warm, the sky blue and the sunlight dazzling when I arrived at Plot 32 this weekend with my tomato plants and trowel. But I was less than happy with what I saw: the soil hard and dry and cracked like old leather. What was worse was the fact that I couldn’t tell where I had sown my lettuce, carrot and onion seed a week ago.

That’s right, I failed to mark my rows! I had wondered at the time if I should, but not having brought so much as a spare stick with me, I convinced myself that I would still be able to tell where my rows were even before the seeds germinated. No germination has occurred yet, and in the intervening days the combination of the wind that seems always to be blowing at the garden site and the small amounts of rain we had seems to have flattened the minuscule mounds that had marked my rows.

Still, I had a good idea of which half of the plot I hadn’t seeded last week and so I plunked in eight tomatoes and a small number of cucumber seeds. I gave the soil a good hosing, tip-toeing about in my mud like a short-strung marionette, unsure if the lumps that I was trying not to stand upon while I watered were the rows from last week.

Note to self: mark all rows next year.

As the wind and sun speedily began to dry up the just-watered ground, and a cute little killdeer began to explore my diggings (see photo), I realized I will be making nightly watering trips to my little veggie patch for the duration of this summer. The soil just does not seem to hold water well.

Further note to self: buy lots of compost next year. Work well into the soil before seeding anything.

Thank goodness I have the tomato plants in now. Their slender bits of green, so small and so few though they may be amid all that lumpy brown earth, actually make Plot 32 look like someone is using it. Or at least trying to.

Yet a further note to self: consider starting other vegetables indoors before spring and planting the seedlings rather than seeds. Looks way more like a real garden then, right at the start — and I won’t have to be left waiting so long to see if anything is going to grow!

I got “on the land” at Plot 32 for the first time today, unsure about the weather conditions (overcast, cold and damp) but most of all unsure about my skill. It has been years since I actually dropped a seed of any kind into soil, and as I stood at the edge of that lumpy brown patch of earth, not knowing even which direction to choose for my rows, let alone which vegetable to put where, I felt suddenly incompetent.

Not that incompetence is unfamiliar to me — it’s kind of my usual experience in most of what I do. But I am particularly embarassed to admit how little I know about vegetable gardening, since my father was a tremendously successful practitioner of the art for decades when I was growing up.

We lived in the countryside north of Bolton, Ontario, and on one of our 8 acres (I used to think it was 10) Dad annually cultivated a huge amount of vegetables: corn, potatoes, tomatoes, beets, carrots, peas, green and yellow beans, broccoli, cucumbers; all planted, weeded and harvested by his own hands. And sometimes with a little help from his kids.

But I must not have helped enough, because today I couldn’t even seem to visualize a straight line in the soil for starting a row. It seemed to me a good idea to rake it first (I think Dad would do that), to try to smooth out some of the lumpiness, but after that I was just guessing at procedures.

So I got seed into earth and covered it up; I watered where I had planted; but I have no idea whether I planted the lettuce, carrots or onions too deep or not deep enough, bunched too close together or spaced too far apart. And maybe it was too cold today anyway (around 12 Celsius and with a challenging wind) to be seeding, and so perhaps none of the tiny seeds I committed to the earth today will germinate.

But part of the allure of gardening, perhaps, is not knowing exactly what’s going to happen. It just might be that these things can grow and flourish in spite of my incompetence — wouldn’t that be a testament to the wonders of nature!

When the air and ground warm up a little more, hopefully by next weekend, I will try putting in some cucumber seed and some tomato seedlings.

I guess I will just have to wait and see what comes up.