We've waited and waited for the soil in our garden to get dry enough to cultivate and plant. It finally did and late last week my Garden Fairy came out to help us. We are not planting as many things this year as we've done in the past. For instance, I'm not going to plant carrots. The reason is that doing a lot of hand weeding is hard on my hands as I have some arthritis in them. Our garden is 75 feet long by 100 feet wide. This year, instead of "playing" so much, it will be more straightforward. We both came down with COVID - 19 at the end of February and although we are fine, we don't have all of our energy back yet. That requires cutting back in some areas. The rows in the garden will be far enough apart that our rototiller will easily be able to do most of the cultivating.
You can see here how we've planted our sweet potatoes. The ground was tilled, then a ridge was made, 75 feet long. Next, we planted about 50 sweet potato plants in there, 18 inches apart in little holes that we filled with water and "mudded them in." The last step was to spread some weed barrier fabric over both sides. I planted about 2 pounds of onion sets up there with them, too, as rabbits hate onions, but they love sweet potato leaves. Later in the season, I will use "Shakeaway" for rodents. We get terrible vole damage on the tubers if I don't do that.
Here you can see two sweet little baby apples on one of our two Transparent apple trees.
And here is a California Wonder sweet pepper seedling. I was able to grow all of my own seedlings this year. I am not sure it saves money, but it does allow me to choose my own varieties to grow instead of only being able to purchase the few that are available locally.
Here is a list of what we planted. Sweet corn, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes (Kennebec), green bush beans, okra, sweet peppers, jalapeno peppers, onions, eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini squash, sugar snap peas, paste tomatoes, Rutger's tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and an heirloom German tomato variety. We hope to put out more sweet corn in about 2 weeks so our season will last longer. Oh my goodness, how we love sweet corn!
In the spring, we plant hope. We hope for the fruit of our effort. Sometimes it's wildly successful, sometimes it's a bit disappointing, but it's never failed to give us at least some good food. I've been gardening since 1976 when my second son was born. I remember sitting and nursing him, snapping green beans, and watching the pressure gauge on the canner, all at the same time. That was a golden year for me. I learned to can, had a fabulous, although rather small, garden, and our 3 oldest children were very young. We rented a house on a farm in Nebraska. Even though I did not have much space in the garden, (it was about 600 square feet) I was able to can 90 quarts of beans! I also canned tomatoes and made lots of pickles. I was very proud of my accomplishment. I could write about it until your eyes glazed over, but the memories are precious.
So, now we wait. I look at pictures of last year's harvest and drool. We're still eating sweet potatoes and canned vegetables from last year as well as applesauce and apple butter, as the trees were very productive. I do love to garden. I'm 72-years-old now and hope I can continue for the rest of the time I have left on this earth.
Happy Spring to all of you Gentle Readers
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