Garden Time

 I had figured out how to grow a few things in South Carolina and was doing pretty well with my tiny garden there. Like, seriously tiny. In fact, when we traveled to China for Rugrat, it was Christmas week and I still had green tomatoes on my plants. 

Tomatoes that had turned black from the first freeze that occurred while we were gone. But hey, they were still there.

A couple of years after we moved here, I planted a single tomato plant in the backyard and we spent most of our time loving on our newly planted apple trees attempting to get them established. Well, if you have read much on here, you know the apple trees are doing fantastic. And that single lonely little tomato plant did pretty darn good too.

The next couple of years, I didn't plant vegetables so much as try to figure out how to landscape the front yard. I fought the weeds pretty hard and kept losing. They were determined to make our front yard a field again.

It was really frustrating. And I eventually gave up on the front. It was easier to do because we got a storm shelter installed.

Which meant a pile of dirt to do something with.

So Hubby beat some stakes into the ground and hammered on some boards. We laid down weed paper and filled it with the dirt. It was quite the pitiful garden and didn't make much. In large part due to the sprinkler head that had been covered by accident. When the sprinklers came on, it would wash away a large patch of the dirt and cause issues. 

Bless his heart, Hubby tried again and I laid down cardboard the next year in addition to the weed paper after it was suggested to me. Still, it didn't do so great but I did manage to get a tomato growing and several stalks of corn. One morning, I went out to check on my foot to foot and a half tall corn stalks and they were gone. Literally, gone. A mama bunny had come along and eaten them right to the ground. 

You may wonder how I know it was a mama bunny. Because she abandoned these just around the corner in our front flower bed.

That was the spring of 2019 and shortly after discovering them, a massive rain storm killed them. 

I thought I might go at it again. But Irene had joined us by that time. 

And she was fairly certain that big box of dirt was there just for her. She utterly destroyed it. I think Hubby must have removed the boards at some point, but there isn't even a hump where the dirt used to be. She scattered it like a pro.

I gave up again. But the bug was still there. This year, I mustered up my energy and my motivation once again. But I was going to be proactive. I began working on a rectangle of ground chosen a little more carefully this time. Full sun. No sprinkler heads in sight (I haven't found one yet anyway). In nobody's way.

I worked the ground with my garden weasel. That's right. No motorized tiller here. The same two hands that are typing these words and an iron stick that you poke in the ground and twist. That's it. I broke up the ground in small sections, then I would sit on a step stool and pull up the grass and weeds with my grabby garden gloves. When it filled my 5 gallon bucket, I would empty it into a paper lawn sack and go again.

I kept going until I had a nice sized patch. But I refused to plant the seedlings I had in it until a trip was made to Lowe's. Where we found iron stakes and wire fencing made specifically to keep rabbits OUT and shockingly dogs as well. Hey, hey!

By this time, Chick had gotten the garden bug too and was helping me fence it. After the initial rectangle was fenced, she offered to pick up more wire fence if we could expand it a little so that she could plant some pumpkins. So we did.

I have to say it isn't looking too bad. And, yes, that is a chair and table on the side. Rugrat likes to sit there and talk. If she isn't out there chatting with me, my phone is still sitting there playing music and holding whatever else I need. 

For the first time, I've grown broccoli. This is a picture I took of the baby broccoli forming. It was pretty neat to watch. And we've already gotten our first fruits off of it -- one of which was this little baby grown up. You have to cut the first head off pretty quick so that the plant will be shocked into making several more.

  

We also were excited to see the strawberry plant doing its thing. We've managed to get three tiny strawberries off of it so far. Hopefully, it will make them a little bigger.

And, of course, this lovely is doing super. In fact, I just harvested off of it for the second time.

We also have a cherry tomato and a few larger tomatoes. This tiny little cherry tomato wasn't even a foot tall before it started making us some maters. We've already gotten two from it and expect quite a few more now that its established.

And we have other things that I haven't gotten pictures of yet too. Chick is already making plans to expand it again for next year. That is in addition to the garden she hopes to be planting in her own yard as well (she is saving to buy a house when the market settles back to normal). I may have caused myself more trouble than intended.

But I hope to have conquered the gardening curse that Oklahoma has against me. I intend to make good use of weed paper next year (and maybe some this year seeing as how I have already done a major weeding about 3 times now).

At the very least, I hope to be enjoying some jars of homemade spaghetti sauce over the winter. I'll set it right next to the bazillion jars of applesauce I still have left from last fall.