We have our spring garden. This is nothing new. It consists of peas, lettuce and spinach. Peas are coming on and we are beginning to harvest some at this point. We almost lost our lettuce. We could not figure out who was the culprit. I have to admit I blamed Chico, our dog, initially, when the plants were very tender and whole plants would disappear. And maybe he did his share of destruction. But when the lettuce plants got bigger and the leaves were gnawed on, I said, "This is not the work of a dog." and so the sleuth work began. Every morning and upon my return from work I would check the lettuce plants. Something was having its way with the lettuce and if we didn't do something about it we were going to lose everything! I built a barrier that was designed to keep a certain dog out, I won't name names. But the lettuce continued to be eaten. Eventually, Dave took some evidence (a half eaten lettuce leaf) to a neighbor who is quite knowledgeable about gardens and was told quail was to blame. We do have quite a few quail in the area. Shortly after that, Dave had an actual sighting of the quails in action. That was enough to whip Dave into action. That day upon my return from work, Dave had devised protection for the lettuce that kept the quail out, but allowed the sunshine and water in. It seems to have worked because the lettuce is now thriving once more. The trick is going to be harvesting. The protection is not harvest friendly. You can see what I mean below.
Next we have our strawberry patch, which I love. Not only is it easy to harvest since it is at waist level, but it is probably one of my all-time favorite foods. We are now in the middle of harvesting those, which is a bit early since they are JUNE bearing plants. But we almost lost this crop as well, to the birds! We've had trouble with birds other years, but usually a plastic snake and a fake owl, moved around regularly will keep the birds at bay, but not this year! We had to resort to netting on top of the plants. This too keeps the animals out, but allows the sun and water to get through. Doesn't make it convenient to harvest, but it does allow for a harvest. See below for yesterday's haul.
Both these gardens we have done for the last 3 years. These are nothing new. But our vegetable garden has been taken to a new level this year. Dave has been quite ambitious. Being in the High Priest group leadership and the home teacher to an elderly woman in our ward who has way more land than she knows what to do with, has combined forces to bring about the first annual "ward" garden. Dave has been toiling away for the last two weeks getting the area ready. He has had help of course. They brought in a tractor that tilled up the ground. This is no small garden. It is probably at least half an acre, maybe more. They tilled it up again and again. I think three times total. Then water had to be brought to the plot. There was a control box for irrigation water, but a pipeline had to be installed so water was accessible to all areas of the garden. A trench was dug (using a machine, thank goodness!), pipe installed with periodic water spouts coming off it and then the pipe had to be covered and the trench filled back in (this time by manual labor). I helped but don't think I contributed all that much since I still tend to baby my back to avoid re-injuring it.
Finally yesterday, our section of the garden was ready to be planted. Dave's weed prevention method (carpet covering) was in place between the rows. Drip hoses were bought and placed down the 3 rows in our 10' x 20' space and our plants were transferred from their small pots where they had been living for the last couple of weeks waiting for their new home to be completed and ready to move in (Kayla & John aren't the only ones in temporary housing this month).
This garden now boasts two cantaloupe hills, two watermelon hills, two zucchini hills, two cucumber hills, one winter squash hill, four cabbage plants (two green and two purple), six tomato plants and onions (donated to us by a neighbor). A very ambitious garden to be sure. We are excited to have a chance to grow vine fruit since our backyard garden has never been adequate to house sprawling produce. I don't have a photo of this garden yet. I will post one with a future blog entry.
But that is not the end of it. We still have our three grow boxes in our backyard. Two are being used mostly by Donna and Bob. They are excited to become gardeners themselves. Yesterday we helped them plant sunflower and carrot seeds in the back grow box. They will use most of the middle grow box to grow their own zucchini and cucumber plants. We will use a section for more onions and a new addition to our garden line-up, a sweet potato plant .The front grow box we are still using and is now home to 13, yes you read right, additional tomato plants. Come on, do the math, that is now 19 tomato plants in all.
Do you know how many tomatoes we are going to be dealing with come August & September?? In past years I've used the description "swimming in" to describe the amounts of tomatoes we've had. This year I'm afraid we are going to be buried alive! We will be giving lots of tomatoes away, I'm sure so feel free to get in line and never buy a single tomato from the grocery store while tomatoes are in season.
Why, you might ask do we have 19 tomato plants? Good question. The answer is easy, poor communication between Dave & I. His brother had asked us to provide him with some tomato starts since every year I grow them from seeds in our sun room. But this year, because of hurting my back, that didn't happen. However, not wanting to disappoint his brother, when I went to the nursery and bought tomato starts I made sure to buy plenty for him to have some and a number to contribute to the ward garden "community" tomato patch as well. My mistake was forgetting to mention this to Dave enough times that he would remember this fact when needed. When his brother called to inquire about picking up his tomato starts from us, Dave just remembered to tell him I hadn't been able to grow any tomatoes from seed this year due to my back problems. There went 6 of the tomato starts, or shall I say "stayed" instead of "went". Then Dave went to a neighbor around the block who grows tomato and pepper starts for sale as a side business and purchased the community tomato plants and didn't take into account the 6 starts that I had earmarked for contribution. The plan was to have 7 of our own tomato starts, MORE than enough for our needs, but now, as you can see and have read, we are proud parents of 19 tomato plants. Call me crazy, I know.
We are excited about the prospective apple harvest as well. I've posted an update to show how the apples are progressing.
We are probably going to need to do another round of thinning. Both trees are doing well. For trees that didn't have one single apple to plenty of fruit this year. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it!
