A Garden of His Own

May 22, 2017

I’ve always felt there’s something magical about gardening. Something happens when you take a seed, plant it in the ground, provide it with a little love, and turn it into food that you can eat.

We have a bit of land that I want to eventually clear for gardening purposes over the next couple of years. Right now it’s a mess of cut down trees, thorn bushes, fiddle head ferns, and wild flowers. My long-term plan is to slowly make my garden just a little bigger each year, eventually filling all the unused space with food that we can eat and maybe even sell at farmer’s markets.

In order to get the kids to help in the garden, I came up with a genius idea to trick them into helping me. I made a deal with them that they could have a garden of their own, but they’d have to do the work and clear the land themselves. They could grow whatever they wanted, but they would have to put the work in. They were all excited about this prospect, but only two have taken me up on it and only one has actually had the time so far to do it. I hadn’t even finished the offer before L had his shoes on and was out the door.

After picking out a spot, L spent the next couple of hours pulling up all the weeds and random growing things. We had a lot of old tree roots to cut, so I pulled out the hatchet and did that part for him. He did most of the work himself though, and I was thoroughly impressed. He had no problem getting dirty knowing that he would get to call this little plot his own.

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He chose a good spot next to the compost piles. I tried to convince him he should pick a different spot that gets more sun, but he really liked this spot, and since this is his garden after all, I went with it.

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This spring, the weather has been very unpredictable here in the north east. One day it’s 90 degrees out and the next it’s 50 degrees and close to freezing overnight. Because of this, it took another couple of weeks after L cleared his land for the fear of frost to pass and for the temps to finally warm up enough to plant something.

This past weekend, L planted corn, carrots, cantaloupe, watermelon, and pumpkins in his garden. He even cleared out some more wild growth to make sure his garden can get all the sunlight it can.

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Charlie, our 7-month-old Lab mix, even helped. If there’s one thing Charlie loves, it’s to help do anything outside. I should have taken a before and after picture, because L did a great job of clearing out all that growth over there. You can also get an idea of what we’re dealing with over here. There is a lot of work to be done!

I’m excited to see L’s garden grow over the next few weeks and months. I’m really looking forward to him learning about being self-reliant and what happens when you put the work in. I think being able to grow something yourself does great things for a person’s spirit and I’m excited for L to experience this.

The Garden That Won’t Grow

May 19, 2017

It seems appropriate that my first post should be on my garden that won’t grow. After all, the whole concept of this blog is be honest and truthful. And well, sometimes the garden just doesn’t grow.

This isn’t my first go-round, so I know I do have the capabilities to grow things. Although, it has been close to 15 years since I last tried. But, my attitude is the same now as it was then—how hard can it be? I mean, last time I just put some seeds in the ground, covered them with dirt, watered them, and be hold! everything grew! Granted, I’m no farmer, and I do consider myself quit the newbie, but growing a garden seem pretty straightforward.

Or, so I thought.

Here’s my setup:

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As you can see, it’s a pretty good size. I have 4.5 rows, followed the directions on the seed packets somewhat closely, and after 3 weeks? Nothing. It gets ample sunlight during the day and we have a compost for nutrient-rich soil.

So, what’s to be done?

Well, I’m not sure yet.

I planted a few more things last night, and L, my stepson, also planted his garden. So, we’ll have to wait as see if these sprout. My guess as to what went wrong is that out of caution I didn’t water it enough. We had quite a bit of rain (or so I thought) from when I planted until now, and I was concerned I would be overwatering. I also thought ants might be the problem, but upon further research that doesn’t seem to be the case either as I read they can actually be quite helpful. I suppose it could also be bunk seeds, but I planted a fair amount of different things, and for all the seeds to be bad seems pretty unlikely. The previous owners had a garden, so I know it can be done, in fact on the other side of the yard, onions they planted before they moved are growing.

At this point, it’s really just a game of wait and see. I’m going to start watering more, and hope that it solves the problem. I’m trying to stay optimistic as I’ve been dreaming about being able to have our own garden since we moved in.