The Great Veggie Patch

After more than thirty years of large scale vegetable gardens, this is how I grow them now and you'll not find a pumpkin in this patch.

I only have two places where veggies can be grown and there is a raised planter at each corner of the house.  Being waist high, bugs are easy to spot and the beds can be easily tended.  Only drawback is the amount of plants I can grow and the beds dry out very quickly.  This is the second year, so I've learned a bit.

After years of tilling the soil and weeding and planting and harvesting, canning and freezing, I think I deserve these.  The roadside stands will have to supply my tomatoes.

Season Of Change

As you can see from the above pictures and my newest header photo, I am quite the gardener.  I try to do it all and have gardened for the past thirty or so years.  

This summer has been different.  The weather was awful.  I lost many fruit trees and the blackberry vines died back. I really don't know what happened to them.  The garden struggled along and many of the crops failed (even the re-plantings.)  That, and with my husband being too sick to help, I got little to nothing from the garden.  

It is such hard work to then get nothing in return.  I can no longer crawl around nor bend down for long periods; the most I can do is scoot along on my bottom.  I think the time has come.  If it isn't in a raised bed, it won't get planted.  The weeding alone is nearly an insurmountable task.  Everything does taste better from your own garden though and isn't covered in chemicals.  

My new house has very little room for vegetable gardening.  Maybe a few pots here and there.  I've been calling it a cottage, but I looked up that definition and it really isn't.  My style of decorating is cottage style, or in reality, eclectic I'd say.  

It is funny about buying a new home.  I had to have a large lot (no neighbors too close) with privacy, no carpeting, no garage doors taking up the front part of the house, and on and on.  So, all that went out the window when I saw the new house.  You can't get everything you want unless you build your own house and I am way past that stage of life.  So, changeability seems to be the catchphrase for me.   Think I will have to have a vegetable garden at my daughter's house.  Seems I'll have to hold on for the ride in this new phase of life where plans change just as soon as they are made.

Container Gardening

It happens to the best of us.  When we can no longer squat and bend over to toil in our gardens and refuse to crawl or scoot around on our behinds, we think of other ways to garden.  This summer, I have decided to try some crops in containers; old containers I have piled up around the farm. I don't even remember where they came from. Recycle? Reuse?  Repurpose? All good. 

Used this old enamel cook pot for carrots, and yes, I over-planted as I have done for thirty years (I told you I never learn).

Since I seem to have problems with slugs, grasshoppers and birds, my strawberries have done well in this old enamel wash pan.  This is a french variety of fraise des bois, a wild variety that though small, are perfumed and strongly flavored.

More strawberries in an old graniteware cook pot (at least, I hope that is what it is).

Another enamel washpan with dandelion greens.  They have thrived.  Lastly, I dare not show you where my pumpkins are growing this year.  I planted them in an small plastic swimming pool used for goslings and cracked with weather and age.  Though somewhat unsightly, it is around the side of the house and not visible from the drive.  I have learned that planting plants so huge and with large root systems isn't the best for this little pool container, as I have to water it daily since the roots take up so much water and it is hotter than hell here. I will be trying some fall plantings in containers soon.  It will take me a while to figure out the differences in planting ground versus containers.  My lasagna garden did better than any garden I've tried, though I learned it also has to be watered frequently since it is raised above ground level.