Working the Land
We were so excited to actually have a free Saturday... at least, after Brookie's meeting at church that morning. But it was mostly free. We took advantage of our leisure time to work.
Last year was the first time we planted a garden. It didn't do so well. Things started off just fine. But our harvest consisted of pulled a few miniature onions and garlic out of the ground. The garlic was so small, we would use an entire head in one batch of marinara sauce. Pretty much everything else died.
This year we're giving it another try. We planted fewer crops, and spaced them out better, so we'll see if it works any better. Hopefully we haven't bitten off more than we can chew this time.
We plowed up the ground and planted corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, and basil. Our strawberries came back and hopefully we'll get at least one berry from them. A few onions and the garlic that I didn't dig up grew back as well. The raspberry bushes we planted last year are looking pretty good, but I'm not sure yet if our blueberries are coming back.
We also bought a bunch of new strawberry plants for the spaces in the tops of the cinder blocks of our retaining walls by our garage. It's kind of an experiment to see if we can add some green to that area.
Even if our garden fails (again), it's still satisfying to get outside and work the land. It makes you feel like you've accomplished something. And that's what we did this weekend.
Go to the board!
Last year was the first time we planted a garden. It didn't do so well. Things started off just fine. But our harvest consisted of pulled a few miniature onions and garlic out of the ground. The garlic was so small, we would use an entire head in one batch of marinara sauce. Pretty much everything else died.
This year we're giving it another try. We planted fewer crops, and spaced them out better, so we'll see if it works any better. Hopefully we haven't bitten off more than we can chew this time.
We plowed up the ground and planted corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, and basil. Our strawberries came back and hopefully we'll get at least one berry from them. A few onions and the garlic that I didn't dig up grew back as well. The raspberry bushes we planted last year are looking pretty good, but I'm not sure yet if our blueberries are coming back.
We also bought a bunch of new strawberry plants for the spaces in the tops of the cinder blocks of our retaining walls by our garage. It's kind of an experiment to see if we can add some green to that area.
Even if our garden fails (again), it's still satisfying to get outside and work the land. It makes you feel like you've accomplished something. And that's what we did this weekend.
Go to the board!
We went and got a soil testing kit and found out that our soil pH is too high, so we bought some iron sulfide to mix in to make it a little more acidic and get it down to where it should be. We'll see if that helps.
ReplyDeleteGood idea—Testing our soil is something we'll try out next year if we fail again.
ReplyDelete