Mary, Mary How Does Your Garden Grow?

It is that time of year when the weather flip flops and Mother Nature gives you just enough hope that it's going to stay warm. Yesterday was like that. I wore shorts out for the first time in months! No jacket was required and the sun was pleasantly warm on my face. I noticed the family of robins are back and preparing their nest in the hole near the gutter. 



For months, I have been receiving my garden seed catalogs and I have looked through each of them several times. Always planning a garden with new and exciting plants and already thinking of the recipes I would use.  Last year didn't go so well, my cucumbers didn't do a thing, they didn't even grow into vines. My bean plants while beautiful produced a mere handful of bean pods. My tomatoes, beets and turnips made a good showing and even the onion bulbs I planted did okay.  I planted a lot more in that garden, and was sorely disappointed by the lack of variety that grew.  This year we are going to really step up and fertilize the soil. 

We expanded the garden to the back fence and it is now 33x13ft.  We found a small garden center that had extremely good prices and bought all the plants for the garden. We still have to sow the beet and turnip seeds.  I am so excited about the variety we chose this year. We are doing the old standby veggies. Tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers, and green beans. I bought a few varieties that we have never tried. Cantaloupe,  zucchini, eggplant, and strawberries. We also have yellow onions and garlic.  I got chives, basil and rosemary. I have successfully already murdered the rosemary. I've no idea what happened.

This year was so much easier! We found about a community center that has a tool loan program and we were able to get a tiller. Man that saved some time and a lot of back pain! I've got to get one of those!!  I can't believe we have ever  prepared a plot without one. All these years just accepting the pain. That explains how so many older people are able to garden in their back yards.

Once I get a few pictures taken I will post them. Now come's the hard part.. waiting!!

Garden Grumble

   Back in the beginning of April we dug out a plot for a garden. It's pretty big for us. 20x16 ft. The largest we have ever done. I by no means am an experienced gardener. Only been planting for the last 4 years and still learning. We do not use any pesticides or chemicals at all. No miracle grow here! We have tomatoes, bell peppers, cukes, watermelon, corn, pole beans, beets, turnips, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, cabbage and dill planted. In pots we have basil, cilantro, carrots and a few flowers for my daughter. We added a few things from the last garden we had. I learned to can a few years ago, fell in love with it and I am excited.
   Where I live is a 5/6 growing zone which is tricky enough. It's a short growing season for us, considering we were raised down south. And being 3 miles from Lake Erie doesn't seem to help at all. The weather has been crazy for all of us this spring. Tornadoes, floods and devastation. I swear it feels like it has rained everyday for the last 3 months! I'm tempted to go check that out, I'd really like to know if it has. My Mother in Law came back in April and we had 3 days of 80 degree weather. Well, she took it back to Virginia with her when she left.
   Rambling... The seeds we had planted were eaten by birds, we have a few pitiful looking plants, but it hasn't been warm enough for anything to really want to grow. the only things we have that are growing are potatoes and onions.
The last two days have been rain filled and I noticed today that the garden was a little flooded. I am hoping that it'll stop raining for a bit, at least let my little plants get a bit bigger.