Monday, May 1, 2017

The Garden, 2017


The snow finally melted enough and t he ground dried out enough to use the rototiller.  Of course, we had snow as recently as late last week and not a thing is planted.

4 comments:

Rich said...

It's been so long since I've commented on a blog that I'm probably a little bit out of practice, but this might be a good place to start commenting again.

What can you typically grow in a garden in your part of the world?

Pat, Marcus & Alexis said...

Rich, I hope to see more posts and comments from you!

Basically, many of the same things you grow down there, but with a much shorter growing season. In our case, potatoes, onions, lettuce, spinach, peas and corn. In the past, also cucumbers and tomatoes. I'm not a huge tomato fan and they require more attention than I have time, so I'll omit them, probably.

I should have potatoes planted by now. Indeed, if I get time (doubtful right now) and cooperative weather (also doubtful), I'll put in everything now.

Rich said...

I'm not a big fan of store-bought bland tomatoes, but home-grown tomatoes are a completely different animal. I usually grow a bunch of different varieties since each one has a different taste.

In the past, I've planted them, waited until they've grown enough to hill a little soil around the base, and mulched them with a thick layer of straw. They'll sprawl all over the ground and can be a pain to pick, but it's a quick and easy way to grow tomatoes.

Now, I like to drive a t-post, plant a couple tomatoes, drive another t-post, etc., then about every week or so as the plants grow, I'll weave a string around the post and tomatoes to hold up the plants (I think it's commonly called the Florida Weave).

I also have to grow peppers and chiles, okra (gotta have gumbo in the summer), zucchini and squash (for grilling and stir fry), and some beets (I hated them as a kid, but for some reason like them now).

Pat, Marcus & Alexis said...

That gives me some good ideas and reminds me of some things my father used to plant at this garden (which was quite a bit bigger when he planted it).

Last year was the first time I planted it in quite some time. Maybe I'll try to diversify a little this year.