So, while I was away from here, blissfully not blogging or bending my brain into any funny shapes I spent the better part of late 2008 and most of 2009 planning, designing, and executing a project that resulted in my wife and I having our very own vegetable garden. (As evidenced by the pics below)
I grew up in a family of avid gardeners and as a child I spent many a long hour processing the bounty that came from a rectangular garden dad had planted near our swimming pool. Family memories of our garden and times spent there have pretty much devolved into discussions of the slave labor my sister and I engaged in while running a green bean "Frencher". Probably invented by Tourquemada, this little thing would cut big fat beans that we waited too long to pick into tasty slivers of garden goodness for as long as the big brother cranked the handle and the little sister fed beans into the chute. I don't remember exactly how long these bean slicing sessions lasted, but my best estimate is around 12 to 13 hours each.
Truly horrible.
Still...many years have passed since then and last Fall I suddenly found myself willing to embark on a journey to grow my own food just like my family has for generations. When I say generations, I mean at least two. Farther back than that and I have no idea where the hell they my ancestors got their food. Maybe they farmed goats or shot up their own grub in the woods....it's all very sketchy. Plus, the economy shitting the bed like a kid with measles left me feeling like I needed to do something to take control of my own destiny. Growing food seemed like a good way to start.
It took me weeks of research and decision making before I settled on the raised bed/make your own dirt method espoused by Mel Bartholomew in his book Square Foot Gardening. Realizing that the soil around our house is basically useless for growing anything but ugly weeds and to improve it in any substantial way would take years, I opted to fill my beds with store bought ingredients guaranteed by Mel to make my gardening life easy and productive.
I assembled the beds, filled them with my soil ingredients, and then since I did this in late February I waited.
Waited for the ground to thaw enough for fence posts and waited until I could transplant the seedlings I had started indoors to my new super awesome mini farm.
Things started happening in April, when I planted seeds, seedlings, hopes, dreams, there was probably some cat shit in there too since these things were like huge litter boxes and the fence didn't go up until the middle of the month.
I was pretty darned proud of myself when I saw those plants that I cared for and nurtured rise from the ground like so many green little children. It was like I WAS THEIR DAD! Only this dad was going to kill and eat them and enjoy the shit out of it.
Then the rabbits came and ate just about everything before I could.
All I could think to myself was "Beatrix Potter, you lying bitch...the real hero was Mr. McGregor!"
A pellet gun and Coast Guard rifle training took care of Peter Rabbit and three of his brothers. My children were avenged.
Garden 2009 was happening again and things grew pretty well until the chipmunks showed up.
I don't know why they always show these little shits with cheeks full of nuts or whatever, because as far as I can tell all they do is eat lettuce, eat cabbage, and scatter newly planted seeds all over the place.
In fact, they are the reason I am writing this now instead of right after picking the last of the Brussels sprouts in November.
I despise them.
They didn't eat everything though and we enjoyed zucchini until the vine borers killed them, tomatoes until the blight killed them, and cucumbers until God knows what killed them.
We got enough cabbage to make about 10 or 15 pounds of sauerkraut and the peppers have done very nicely.
All in all I do not feel like I failed, but we did not get anywhere near the amount of food I expected to get when the garden first started growing in my head nearly a year ago.
I truly had visions of legions of mason jars filled with all kinds of garden delights stacked on my basement shelves and couldn't wait to crack open a jar of homemade pickles.
I guess we'll have to settle for 5 or 6 jars of sauerkraut.
The bottom line here is that pests were the main problem I faced. I think I had managed to glean many gardening basics as a kid and my parents were very helpful throughout the summer. It was also nice to have a rainy year where our travel (read that as neglect) did not result in an under watered garden dying a slow ugly death. Mel's dirt mix also proved to be a stellar substitute for plain old dirt and since you never till it it will save me a ton of work next spring.
I realize that for the same amount of money (and much less effort) I could have shopped the farmers' market all summer long and probably brought home more and better vegetables, but next year this bitch is going to really start paying for itself.
Once I solve the chipmunk problem and slightly modify what I plant, I think we'll be French cutting mounds of green beans by next July.
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