The Garden

Last night we ate our first crop of "garden beans" from our garden. Actually, I did not eat any, since I don't really eat many vegetables, but I hear they were good.

This is my second attempt at a garden, after a completely failed attempt last summer. I think last summer's garden failed for a number of reasons:
1. Ambitious start date - I started planting things the first early day in May, even though our last frost date isn't until May 30.
2. We were gone for 10 days in mid-June for our honeymoon - no rain, meant no water for the garden while we were away.
3. I was afraid of hurting the little vegetables. Meaning - I wasn't willing to "thin." I didn't want to kill half of the lettuce plants!!!! What I didn't understand was that by not killing half of the lettuce plants, that meant that none of them survived. Oh well, lesson learned.
4. Animals - they unabashedly ransacked our garden constantly. We could not keep up with the squirrels, crows, deer and bunnies that wanted our veiggies.
5. And finally, our soil sucked. Clay does not produce much produce.

So, with all of these lessons learned, we waited until the end of May to plant, but not before we invested in dozens of bags of Moo-nure and garden soil, which we tilled in to improve the soil. I came to peace with the fact that some little plants had to die in order for the others to survive and thrive. We planned no long vacations (although with the wet June we had this year, it would not have been a problem.) We invested in a "Scarecrow" - a battery operated, motion sensing sprinkler that shoots a jet stream of water in a wide, pre-determined arc whenever something moves near it. It keeps the animals away and also has given me a good soaking more than a few times.

And lo and behold, we have a garden. (I'll post a picture soon, I promise.)

We planted 50 strawberry plants and "dead-headed" them each time a flower showed it's face in order to allow the plant to get stronger. Well, almost all of them. We did get about 40 or so strawberries, but I figure that an average of less than one berry per plant isn't bad. We have garden beans (success!), basil (success!), oregano (success!) cucumbers (success so far! vines are starting to creep!), peppers (success TBD), corn (not optimistic but it's looking so-so), and lettuces (the only complete failure this year, I think because it was planted in a particularly clay-dense area.)

I am LOVING the basil and oregano in our pasta dishes and D enjoyed the beans that he had last night! I have a feeling that we'll be giving away mass numbers of cucumbers (since I don't eat them and Dave only likes them in small doses), but all in all I consider this year's garden a complete success. I already have ideas in my mind for next years garden that include planting the corn in a more sun-filled section and additional compost to continue to improve the soil. Hopefully there will be no surprises for the rest of this summer's garden!