Gardening 2007

My hubby is gung-ho to work with me to make a very large garden this (coming soon) year. Hurray!

I was talking about broccoli when this subject was being spoken of between us. I said it would be good to be able to grow our own, as one bag of frozen florets wasn’t enough, and two would barely be enough –for one meal … sooner than later. He said we could grow it, uh, I said kindly, “Do you know how much broccoli we’d have to plant/grow to fruition … in order to not BUY it from the store?”
The thing is, our backyard is plentiful enough in size to accomodate large gardens here and there, or all together. I’ve had fairly large ones in the past, and struggled to do everything and fail time after time. DH sure helps me to get the garden cultivated so that it can be planted … but much past that has been left to me.

It gets SO hot in the summer. Our (back)yard gets blasted with sunshine all day, year round. I think it’s just too much, somehow, for the plants. I’ve mulched; watered correctly, not too much, not too little; fed the plants; sprayed for horn worms; this and that. Put organic material suitable for gardening into the soil before planting too. Withered, or non-producing bell peppers. Tomatoes good sometimes, but not every variety, every year (in fact I haven’t had a decent tomato in three years, I do esteem to recall.) Beans, if planted do alright generally, as long as picked regularly (and when not, ugh the big ugly tough things, I hate pulling them off and then don’t eat them anyway.) I grew corn one early year that we were in this house. It was horrible, mutated looking, frightening. I ripped it out. I have gotten away from corn since then, we don’t use it as a veggy at all. I had a lovely herb garden a couple of years ago. It started out nice, but then just didn’t go well. After the first year it dissapeared, perennials just didn’t come back (they were ones that should definitely have done so.) Grass infiltrated so fast it was impossible to fight it, and I just had a few Thyme plants left. The Thyme flourished that next year, but was surrounded by grass entirely and most of the Thyme dead wood by last year. I got a whiskey barrel and planted some new things in it this past summer, and put the remains of my thyme in too. It’s still going, but so miniscule.

I just have a black thumb nowadays, it seems. I used to have a green thumb, years ago. I do feel/think there is something wrong with the dirt here. I haven’t had it checked out, but surely should, I think of it often enough. I don’t use chemicals in my garden, btw. I do it as naturally as I can, and want to use more “organic” sources for supplements, and I hope I can this next growing season. I want to have a bountiful harvest, and put the effort into it that it needs to flourish. It’s hard work, I know. Hubby wants to share, and that will be a good thing. I want to get the children interested in gardening too, have them help us, and have a little plot of their own, each, as well.

Yeah, I’ve got growing on my mind. It’s far away, but not so very far, in The South.