Gardening 1

OK, I’m sensing a need to make more contact with mother earth, so I’m going to get more serious about the vegetable garden this year.  Thinking about getting a pair of overalls, and calling myself a farmer.  LOL

For a number of years now, we have grown 2-3 tomato plants, in pots, on the south side of the shed.  These plants always seem to struggle, as we are not good about consistently watering.  A number of years ago, I built three planter boxes.  We usually plant pumpkins.  One year we tried some other vegetables, but we were not very serious about it.  As time passed, we weren’t using all three planter boxes, so I disassembled one of them, and used the wood to make the potting bench. 

This year, we will have a garden.  I’ve built another planter box, so, we have three again. I took the dirt from the two boxes, spread it into three, added dirt from the side of the house, which has had the rocks sifted out, and added 6 bags of planting mulch.  I will be moving the tomato pots into the garden, where I can run the drip watering lines to them, hopefully producing more fertile plants.  I’ve killed all of the grass and weeds in this area, and laid down cardboard in the areas around and between the planter boxes.  The rain last weekend softened up the cardboard very nicely.  In the meantime, I learned that the city deposits woodchips (with pine needles) into a bin, located next to the library.  Residents are welcome to load up the woodchips and take them home.  I put some shovels into the truck, went to the library, and loaded up the bed with the woodchip mixture, and placed a layer of this mixture over the cardboard in the garden.

This year, we are going to try:  pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini, and a variety of bell peppers; orange, yellow, red, and maybe purple.  I see from the Old Farmers Almanac that optimum planting dates for these vegetables occurs over the next week or two.  Good timing.

We have a variety of fruit trees along the east fence.  I now call this the orchard.  Lemon, mandarin orange, apricot, nectarine, avocado, and of course, the apple, which we have enjoyed the fruits of for many years now.

I will get that pair of overalls.  Going to be a farmer for Halloween this year.