How Does Your Garden Grow

Dear Readers, you might remember me talking about putting in a garden this summer. Well, things are progressing nicely. And I promised you a post on how I got it all started and regular updates. So here is the first in what is likely to be many posts.

I began my gardening by removing sod. Boy, was my sod healthy... several inches of roots. I started by taking it off by shovel. Hahahahahahhahahahahahhahaha. Yeah, that went over gangbusters..... taking way too long and too hard of work. So I then rented a manual sod cutter, which looks a little like a hand plow. What a wonderful thing. It removed 200 sq feet of sod in the same amount of time it took me to remove 20 sq feet with a shovel.



The next weekend, a coworker and I rented a tiller and tilled up my little plot. I then had about 250 total square feet of garden space, some in the front and some in the back. Next year, I hope to take up even more in the front and do some additional planting.

Once the ground was tilled, I planted. Pickle cukes, cantalope, noodle beans, violetta beans, spaghetti squash, Italian flat green beans, radishes, zucchini and summer squash, mater plants, shallots, leeks, okra, eggplant, parsnips, carrots, two types of lettuce, swiss chard, and spinach in back. Snow peas andIndian cukes as well as herbs and pepper plants (hot and sweet) in front. I had very mixed results.


Below are very early radish seedlings. I picked my first radish yesterday. It was spicy!


Everything in front has gone gangbusters. my snow peas are trellised up the fence and are about 2 feet tall! I have flowers on the peppers!

In back, none of the beans came up. The carrots and parsnips were spotty as was the okra. The leeks came up not at all, and neither did the spinach. I think it was too wet. So I waited and replanted, and adopted some orphan mater plants to put in the bare patches where I could replant. And I got fresh seed, so I can do a fall planting of chard, spinach, kale, and napa cabbage.

Right now, there are lots and lots of weeds and little maple saplings that need to be removed. I guess that will be our weekend project. But no matter what, I think we are going to have a lot
of really good veggies to eat this year.