Omigosh Mishaps in the Garden

    By no means am I a gardener.  Don’t know as I ever had the desire to be.  If I did, it was when I was younger.  Like grammar school younger.  And the sun didn’t seem to faze me as its heat wrapped itself around my body like an unwanted blanket – suffocating me.  I’d rather be indoors with the air conditioning and not pulling weeds in the garden.

    It seems the wind has blown some grass seed into our garden.  And the miracle grow is doing wonders on the grass and the beans and peppers.  But the grass is not a part of our garden and so I have been pulling up blades.  I can dig up the roots (well, some of them) if they are in the isle of the garden, but if they are sprouting in the same row as the plants (or some still seeds) they can’t be dug up as well.  

    Every day there are blades of grass.  Everyday I tug at the blades and dig and rake.  I am frustrated when they are still attached to the earth with roots so long they must reach to the center of the earth.  We need the plants to spread their roots.  How can they if the grass blades have such long roots?

    The pigweed pulls out easily.  When I am done pulling and tugging and digging, I will rake the area over.  It is then when I learn how well my digging has (or has not paid) I can tell the blades and weeds from the beans and peppers.  But I am still having a problem telling the onions apart from the grass blades.  So I know that I am not getting it all on that particular end of the garden.

      But the weeds are not my biggest obstacle.  I learned that fighting with the net has become my biggest challenge.  We put two up over the garden and one over the sad looking cantaloupe to keep the birds and dogs out.  Don’t know about the birds and the dog, but I’m thinking that if I trip over or rip the nets any further, they will keep me out.  Gardening is such an incredible pain.  May our produce be worth it.

"And Ye Shall Plant a Garden . . ."

 We planted beans, beets, onions, and peppers.  Roland asked if we should do corn or tomatoes again.  I don’t really care about the corn, but I do enjoy being able to eat tomatoes off the vine rather than paying an outrageous price at the store for something that just isn’t as good.

But there were plenty of tomatoes with the community garden last year – and as Roland donated all our tomato cages to the cause – we decided that we would just use the tomatoes from the community garden and that would be enough. 

It was overcast and cool.  Roland wanted to finish before any rain fell down.  The dirt looked light and dry as it spit around the cultivator.  We dug holes for seeds and plants and planted stakes at each end and tied string from one end to the other and were pleased.  Though Roland seemed to want more.

Lacy and her husband have a fair amount of property.  I would guess roughly about three or four acres – but that is just a guess.  There’s a bunch of us who have used a patch of their land for our community garden.

Dan is in charge and had scheduled for those that had contributed to come plant on Saturday.  That cancelled due to the rain but we were asked to come on Monday night and dress appropriately for possible mud.  And so the community garden was put on hold.

Monday Roland returned from work with six tomato plants and corn and strawberries.  He always wants to plant strawberries – but we haven’t been very successful with fruit (except for the tomatoes – which are technically a fruit) .  We’ve tried blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, melons, grapes.  We get apples on our apple trees, but we don’t eat them.  We did eat the plums from the trees when we lived in our first house. Somebody else planted them.  They seemed to grow fine without our help.

Since we don’t have the tomato cages anymore, Roland used some signs that he had from his last job – another of his creative solutions. Thus we stood the frames next to the plants  for the tomatoes to lean against when they become large like the first sets we grew.

So we found a couple of areas and Roland cultivated the land.  It had been raining all day and the soil looked rich and dark – but it wasn’t muddy.  The sun was beating down while we were planting.  We both wore hats.  The one that I wore I had purchased specifically for gardening as it shaded me.  Roland wore a safari hat.  But the shadow of him wearing the hat made him appear to be an actual farmer. My shadow gives off the image of a true gardener (LOL)

Just as we had finished, it grew overcast again.  And then we went over to the community garden to plant and covered each plant with milk cartons to keep the birds away.  But I see another definite plus with the milk cartons – when the weeds start popping up, it will be easier to tell which are weeds and which are plants.  Pull everything NOT surrounded by milk carton.

I can’t remember if Dan said if we were planting fruit or not.  Those that couldn’t show on Monday were requested to come Wednesday to plant corn, beets and pumpkins (Corey refers to the squash varieties of the Y’s of the fruit world; you know how Y can act as either a consonant or a vowel in the English alphabet.  Squash and tomatoes, pumpkins . . . they’re all a part of the fruit family though most people consider them to be vegetables)

  

 Seems more peppers were added to the crop this year – and more varieties.  I personally don’t care if a chili pepper or jalepeno pepper ever make an appearance in this house. 

Roland and I grew pumpkins one year – we were hoping for the kind that can be carved into Jack-o-lanterns, but they were an unfamiliar squash that we could only paint faces on.  Or in this case: 

Planting Another Garden

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Everything I know about garden could be written on a 3X5 card – perhaps with room to spare.  We lived in the same stake as Joy Bossi – who hosted the program “Joy in the Garden” Our two wards shared the same church building and we could there on Thursday afternoons to listen to her words of wisdom on what we needed to do to prepare for and grow gardens.

 

In our particular neighborhoods the soil was not great for growing much other than weeds.  One thing that I remember learning was to make several holes in the bottom of a plastic wading pool (the kind that you can find in stores) and fill it with great soil and mix it with manure that was purchased from a gardening store.  Roland and I tried it.  And we did have growth, but very little in the way of onions.

 

Last night Roland and I made another attempt at a garden this year.  From seed we planted beans and beets and pepper plants and onions. We had tried onions again after moving to West Valley (which does have much much better soil than what we had in Kearns)  - they came out like pearl onions in which about nine onions would equal a small onion used for cooking.  I think it only lasted for three meals.

We have grown beets before.  They did well for us.  And actually so have tomatoes – at least certain varieties.  Roland chose not to do tomatoes this year, as there seemed to be plenty from the community garden last year. 

Peppers have never grown for us.  I think this is our third year trying.  And I don’t remember beans growing so I don’t know if we’ve already attempted them or not.

Dan has put himself in charge of the community garden – though all those who would like the benefits of community harvest are expected to participate in the garden’s upkeep.  And Roland had asked tons of questions last year.  This is the first year we have used string to mark where the plants are.  I hope it helps – I am often pulling at plants instead of weeds.

I heard it raining quite early this morning.  I hope it didn’t wash away any of the seeds. We were going to start with the community garden this morning, but it looks like it's been postponed to Monday night because of the weather.  Maybe I can watch Ester this morning.