I’m certainly no Farmer Brown – unless you count all those times I was at the low end of the teeter totter in elementary school! Having lived in 14 different places I’ve had many a chance to dabble in gardening. There was never any harm in attempting it, at least not for me – I usually moved out in a year or two, let the next person fix it if they don’t like what I’ve done with the place! I have a friend who’s thumb is so green the Jolly Green Giant calls her for advice. How do people just KNOW what to do? Ever since I saw what she could do with a military housing yard, my interest has been peaked. Each year I’ve branched out a bit more than the year before - I’ve found annuals are a safe starter pet for the garden. I dabbled in bulbs, then tomatoes, herbs, and finally cucumbers at our last house.
Lessons learned:
Cucumbers need room. I had no idea they spread and spread and spread and curl around everything in their path!
Silver bells and cockle shells don’t do a damn thing for your garden in real life!
When they tell you to space something “x” inches apart or only put “x” number of seeds in a hole, it’s for a reason. Apparently they did what I did and found it didn’t work! Note to self, follow directions.
So taking these important lessons learned I decided to go big this year. Now that we’re back in Maine, living in the country where farming is big and everyone has a garden and apparently just “knows” what to do. Last fall I started just casually asking friends and family about gardening, just gathering info as any good researcher does. By spring I was getting pretty darn excited, I was gonna have me some tomanurs! My husband and I started discussing where we would put the garden on our 3 acres of land. We both agreed the side yard made the most sense as it was easy access to water and it’s, well, right there!
So spring arrives and my husband tells me our friend is going to come over with the tractor to dig the garden plot. My husband was on his way to Maine from Virginia and thought he’d be here before the tractor arrived so I wasn’t too worried about having to be too involved in the logistics of the garden plot. And then J, our friend with the tractor, shows up in my driveway. He drove that tractor 4 miles from his house at probably 15 miles an hour, no guilt here – just dig, whatever you think I need! So J asks the million dollar question: “How big you want it?” Me: Ummm…. So he get’s on the tractor and says “Just say ‘whoa’ when you think it’s the length you want.” Me: Ummmm….. Up he goes and he starts dragging that tractor through my lawn – yikes, I’m thinking, no turning back now – I hope I’m doing this right. “Ummm – whoa!” I say. 30 minutes later I’ve got roughly a 20×12 garden plot! Ummm… sure hope this is what my husband had in mind!
Now the garden begins to evolve, pulling grass and rocks from the plot to prepare it. D gets out there night and day to haul rocks and sling grass clumps. Finally it’s ready.
Fast forward to planting… It was similar to a barn raising – we had a friend up from Virginia, my husband, and the kids all out there on Memorial Day planting feverishly before the sun set, being eaten alive by black flies and mosquitoes in the process. We’re all so excited, stepping back to admire and envision what we’ll reap from this bounty of ours! I make a reasonable goal: If we eat one thing from this garden, we’ve succeeded!
Every day I check on the progress. Is that something sprouting up there? Days go by and things are definately sprouting. I find as things are starting to sprout, I don’t know what my crops look like as babies. Fearful of pulling up my bounty, I let it be – contrary to Farmer J’s advice of, “You’ve gotta stay on the weeding, it’s awful but you gotta do it.” So days turn to weeks and now we’ve definately got some plants down there – or are those weeds? I don’t know, what does a pole bean look like? I’ll just let it be, I’ll be able to figure it out soon. So hubby arrives one weekend, pride swelling within me at the sight of my ”garden” – “Have you been weeding?” he asks. I explain my situation. Mother-in-law arrives to the rescue, the three of us spend the day weeding the mess I’ve been referring to as our “garden”. Another lesson learned:
If you don’t weed, you can strangle the baby plants and those pole beans you hoped for – well, they ain’t comin’! Maybe next year….
So after a hard day of weedin’, that my Mother-in-law and husband did – hey, I had babies to take care of! No seriously, at this point I was nursing a flare up in my back so I tried to weed as much as I could but honestly, when Mama goes down with a back flare-up it ain’t pretty. The house goes to pot, and we’re only moments away from Social Services showing up before my paralysis goes away and I’m back to my sweat shop home sweet home.
Okay so now we’re cooking with oil, look at those blossoms – squash is a comin’, cukes are on the way, and lettuce is here! I’ve done it – I reached my goal – we get to eat one thing from the garden, lettuce.
Well it didn’t stop with lettuce. We’ve had cukes, zucchini, yellow squash, peas, some squash that looks like a flat curvy circular kinda thing, butternut squash and tomatoes! Did I mention zucchini and tomatoes? Last night J and I went down to harvest the garden as it had been awhile. We came back with 7 butternut squash (yes, that’s the one that is so phallic looking), 5 zucchini, 2 yellow squash, a bucket of tomatoes, and a pint of grape tomatoes! I’d say my goal has been met and then some! I took pictures because the bounty is just so colorful and I must admit – I’m proud. We even had numerous sunflowers grow in there, some jalapenos, and gourds and mini-pumpkins are in there too!
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