Ever since we moved to our land , I ’ve been eager to garden . Our predecessor left us with two established plot of land and an amazing irrigation system , so getting start should have been easy .
Well , it was n’t .
Our first summer here was all about the move . By the time we catch ourselves in and settle down , there was very little time left in the get time of year to get the garden plots cleaned up and plants started , so we focused on care for the crop — some garlic , asparagusand herbs — that were already growing .
Last yr , against Mr. B ’s most insightful wisdom , I was dead - set up on draw the garden of my dream started , and I dive flat into failure . You see , our second summer on the land was all about my pregnancy — and boy , was it a doozy ! While I managed to getseeds startedandplants in the ground , the upkeep of such a large garden was a short more than I could handle . Each evening when I came home from work , I was overcome by wave of nausea , so getting on my hand and knee joint to pull widow’s weeds was n’t on the dot what I could handle . By mid - growing season our garden looked something like this : Rachael Dupree
As you’re able to tell , it has n’t switch much since then .
I do n’t repent the honest ol’ college endeavor , though . Amazingly enough , we were capable to harvest some summer squash , which I made into pickles , and a ton of peppers , which we froze and have been deplete all wintertime . ( Oh , those resilient peppers , able-bodied to grow among the compact weeds — I’ll never leave them out of my garden again . ) However , I never venture my tomatoes or trellised my cucumber , so those were complete disasters , and hardly a wintertime squash grew . Maybe the soil was n’t prolific enough , mayhap the squash borers got the proficient of them ; it ’s hard to say because I was too sick - touch to pay attention .
Rachael Dupree
So now we ’re moving into our third summertime here on the farm : the yr of the baby . I ’m skip the old adage , “ third time ’s a charm , ” rings straight when it comes to horticulture because I ’m heroic for a profits this twelvemonth . But I also realize that my big garden aspiration take to be dominate in a chip .
To be quite honest , life-time with infant has n’t been as hard for us as mass would have like us to believe ( y’ all , we actually get sleep ! ) , but the inhuman hard realness of the subject is that it has force us ( and when I say us , I meanme ) to slow down . That ’s something the res publica had n’t quite been able to instill in me yet , but leave behind it to a little one to rock your world .
While I ’m lofty of all of all I ’ve accomplished with a bantam man in tow , such as sourdough bread ( more on that later ) , my expectations for each day have had to be — how should we say it?—a little simpler . So as intemperately as it is for me — the soul who wants to produce all the thing — to take on , I must limit myself this year if I desire to accomplish some greater good for the garden . To aid me out with this , I ’ve come up with a few garden resolutions to keep me on path :
1. Can My Own Tomatoes
I use tomatoes all wintertime in soup , stews , curries and sauces , and freshly canned tomatoes gravel the store - corrupt variety every time . After last yr ’s complete tomato failure ( 12 flora and nary a tomato ripe enough to eat ) , I ’ll give this crop a footling more attention this year — like , actually impale them and maybe even doing some sucker picking .
2. Grow Medicinal Herbs I Use
One affair missing from life the past two years has been my own garden - grown medicinals . In my littleurbangarden , I grew lots of thing , including chamomile , calendula , motherwort and genus Echinacea , for use in the teas and balms I craft . Not only were they useful , they impart a certain charm to the garden . I ’m reckon forward to incorporating a few favorites into my garden this twelvemonth and maybe even trying some new .
3. Enlist Weed Help
The mourning band in these parts are grim . I ’ve engage battle on cockleburs and setaceous amaranth in particular . If anyone has any suggestions for ways to put these two flora to utilize , please let me make out , because we have no shortage . With piffling one by my side , these weeds and others will belike grow faster than I can hoe them down , so I plan to apply some weed barrier this year . Straw is a common go - to , and I ’ve been told fatal material does wonders . Maybe I ’ll judge both and see which I like well .
If nothing else this year , I hope my girl and I can get out into the garden and have some fun . Even if just one jar of Lycopersicon esculentum is canned , few herbs are demonstrate and the weeds grow out of control yet again , we ’ll have done something , and I trust I ’ll be on my room to ingrain in her a great love of the out-of-doors .
