The Garden Has Officially Begun
James and I had an extremely active and productive weekend. It was our first weekend to really set foot into the garden plot. As I mentioned earlier, we were only given 484sqft of the original 800sqft we were promised, but what can you do?
After having to scrap my original plans and chart out something more practical than decorative for our garden plan, I was ready to finally get started before something ELSE would change and force me to scrap plans yet again! Besides our tomato seedlings were crying out to be put into the ground -- most of them well over a foot tall, now. The other seedlings were beginning to get offended, too.
The progress we made on the garden plot was slow due to the ground having about a week to settle after a tractor had come and tilled all of the land. A few rain showers, some sun, and some time was all it took to smooth out the cultivated ground and make it solidify again into an only slightly loose mass. So, in order to make all the beds I'd charted out, we were having to do some very hefty spading, cultivating, and raking. Everyone else had fancy rototillers... we had four hands and some very manual tools. (sigh) But, before we even got into the soil itself, we erected a fence around our entire plot to protect it against people's dogs (and we saw quite a few out while we were working), ravenous bunnies, and trespassers in general. So, only half of the garden is cultivated and shaped into beds, but at least we've managed to plant ALL of the seedlings that I'd started and I even managed to sow the seeds of some things that need to get started right away.
We have 28 tomato plants:
10 Celebrity
8 Silvery Fir
5 Red & Yellow Brandywine -- indeterminate
5 Speckled Roman -- indeterminate
The Celebrity and Silvery Fir plants are all in a large bed while the Brandywine and Speckled Romans are in their own smaller beds (surrounded by basil). In case you were wondering, indeterminate means that these vines will continue to grow and produce all season long until a frost comes... so they're going to get pretty unruly and ugly by the end. The other two varieties will grow to a certain height, produce fruit, and will pretty much wither away. Ideally, we can then clear the bed out and plant something else -- maybe a cool season crop of peas.
The basil area will be fun, hopefully:
Purple Petra
Mrs. Burns Lemon
Napoletano
Large Leaf
Greek Yevani
We also transplanted some French Marigolds that I'd started, and made an herb bed of thyme, parsley, savory, lemon balm, and chamomile.
Along the east-facing fence, I planted a row of Borage & Summer Solstice Zinnias. I hope we get some sprouts (and flowers, of course).
The rest of the garden will be a large bed of two different varieties of Pole Beans (Scarlet Emperor & Kentucky Wonder); a large area of trellised cucumbers (Homemade Pickles); a smaller bed for Cabbage & dill; a wee bed for carrots (Royal Chantenay, Carnival, & Tonda di Parigi); a large bed for pumpkins (Jarrahdale & Sugar Pie) and Nasturtiums; a pair of small beds for cut flowers (a variety called Grandma's Cut Flower Garden); a row along the south-facing fence of Giant Fantasy Zinnias; and a row along the north-facing fence of Autumn Beauty sunflowers.
So, still lots more to do, but now we definitely know what we're up against. I honestly feel like the worst of the work is over, too, since the remaining beds won't necessarily have to be quite as stirred up and cultivated as the ones we did this weekend. I can't wait until everything is in place and I can start the fun stuff... like weeding, looking for bugs, checking for disease... and then the really fun stuff... like watching blooms turn into fruit, watching a special pumpkin turn into a whopper, picking tomatoes... sigh. I'm just so grateful to James for being willing to help me and to do at least half of the work in getting this thing off the ground... or, rather INTO the ground. I don't know anyone else in my life who would've had the patience and fortitude to go into this kind of venture with me.
We're tired, we're a little sunburned (I totally forgot to put on my SPF 20 until it was too late)... but we feel accomplished. I think that's the best thing about manual labor -- it provides something, for me, that sitting at a desk for 40hrs/wk typing invoices just can't muster. I'm looking forward to Tuesday when I'll be heading out to the garden right after work to hopefully start finishing things up. The next time I'll get to go after that will be Sunday when we'll put in the cucumber seedlings... hopefully we'll be done with everything then.
After having to scrap my original plans and chart out something more practical than decorative for our garden plan, I was ready to finally get started before something ELSE would change and force me to scrap plans yet again! Besides our tomato seedlings were crying out to be put into the ground -- most of them well over a foot tall, now. The other seedlings were beginning to get offended, too.
The progress we made on the garden plot was slow due to the ground having about a week to settle after a tractor had come and tilled all of the land. A few rain showers, some sun, and some time was all it took to smooth out the cultivated ground and make it solidify again into an only slightly loose mass. So, in order to make all the beds I'd charted out, we were having to do some very hefty spading, cultivating, and raking. Everyone else had fancy rototillers... we had four hands and some very manual tools. (sigh) But, before we even got into the soil itself, we erected a fence around our entire plot to protect it against people's dogs (and we saw quite a few out while we were working), ravenous bunnies, and trespassers in general. So, only half of the garden is cultivated and shaped into beds, but at least we've managed to plant ALL of the seedlings that I'd started and I even managed to sow the seeds of some things that need to get started right away.
We have 28 tomato plants:
10 Celebrity
8 Silvery Fir
5 Red & Yellow Brandywine -- indeterminate
5 Speckled Roman -- indeterminate
The Celebrity and Silvery Fir plants are all in a large bed while the Brandywine and Speckled Romans are in their own smaller beds (surrounded by basil). In case you were wondering, indeterminate means that these vines will continue to grow and produce all season long until a frost comes... so they're going to get pretty unruly and ugly by the end. The other two varieties will grow to a certain height, produce fruit, and will pretty much wither away. Ideally, we can then clear the bed out and plant something else -- maybe a cool season crop of peas.
The basil area will be fun, hopefully:
Purple Petra
Mrs. Burns Lemon
Napoletano
Large Leaf
Greek Yevani
We also transplanted some French Marigolds that I'd started, and made an herb bed of thyme, parsley, savory, lemon balm, and chamomile.
Along the east-facing fence, I planted a row of Borage & Summer Solstice Zinnias. I hope we get some sprouts (and flowers, of course).
The rest of the garden will be a large bed of two different varieties of Pole Beans (Scarlet Emperor & Kentucky Wonder); a large area of trellised cucumbers (Homemade Pickles); a smaller bed for Cabbage & dill; a wee bed for carrots (Royal Chantenay, Carnival, & Tonda di Parigi); a large bed for pumpkins (Jarrahdale & Sugar Pie) and Nasturtiums; a pair of small beds for cut flowers (a variety called Grandma's Cut Flower Garden); a row along the south-facing fence of Giant Fantasy Zinnias; and a row along the north-facing fence of Autumn Beauty sunflowers.
So, still lots more to do, but now we definitely know what we're up against. I honestly feel like the worst of the work is over, too, since the remaining beds won't necessarily have to be quite as stirred up and cultivated as the ones we did this weekend. I can't wait until everything is in place and I can start the fun stuff... like weeding, looking for bugs, checking for disease... and then the really fun stuff... like watching blooms turn into fruit, watching a special pumpkin turn into a whopper, picking tomatoes... sigh. I'm just so grateful to James for being willing to help me and to do at least half of the work in getting this thing off the ground... or, rather INTO the ground. I don't know anyone else in my life who would've had the patience and fortitude to go into this kind of venture with me.
We're tired, we're a little sunburned (I totally forgot to put on my SPF 20 until it was too late)... but we feel accomplished. I think that's the best thing about manual labor -- it provides something, for me, that sitting at a desk for 40hrs/wk typing invoices just can't muster. I'm looking forward to Tuesday when I'll be heading out to the garden right after work to hopefully start finishing things up. The next time I'll get to go after that will be Sunday when we'll put in the cucumber seedlings... hopefully we'll be done with everything then.