WFMW: Low Maintenance Garden

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As I've mentioned in posts past, this year, we built two raised garden beds.

Let me tell you ... they are the epitome of gardening. They are fabulous, easy and LOW MAINTENANCE!!! No tilling, and no digging holes in the impossible hard ground (we have all clay and rock)!

There are many reasons to consider gardening: economical, satisfying, hormone-free, delicious. If you haven't planted a garden, I strongly encourage you to do so.

Let me tell you what I did to make the garden low maintenance:

1. First, it is a raised garden -- with new, fresh top soil and leaf compost (we purchased a truck load per bed at the nursery - a great investment in my eyes). No old weed roots to deal with.

2. I mulched, mulched, mulched. Not only does it look good, but it keeps the soil moist longer, and holds back the weeds.

So the key to a low maintenance garden? MULCH!!! (once we establish our strawberry bed, I'll use straw around the strawberries)

In the last three months, I've only had to pull approximately 4 or 5 blades of grass that have popped up. That's pretty awesome, if you ask me! I'll keep everyone posted on how we do in the summer months with weeds.

Garden News

It's time for an update on the garden, and a picture or two.

I'm SOOOO excited about my garden this year. As you may recall, I've already commented on how BAD my garden did last year. This weekend, we were at a friend's house for an impromptu cookout, and I found out that EVERYONE'S tomatoes and peppers did poorley in our neighborhood, but HOT PEPPERS rocked.

Last year, my sweet father-in-law and my overly-enthusiastic son planted our veggie plants in our garden strip before we had a chance to correct the soil. I suspect some of the clay choked nutrients out of the tender plants and that may be why they failed. It was our first garden, and we learned quite a bit.

THIS year, my wonderful, awesome husband built me a raised garden bed. It is a vision of beauty. And over the last month, we've filled it with a nice soil mixed with leaf compost, added some soil corrector (peat moss and manure), and finally -- planted, planted, planted. Then, I covered the tender plants with beautiful mulch to protect them from the sun and retain moisture. This weekend, we'll be putting up bunny-corrective measures.

I was NOT going to invest so much money into a garden only to have it fail again! You can bet that I'm praying over that garden. In fact, with each plant I put in the ground, I said a little prayer over it, asking God to bless this plant and have it provide abundantly for our little family.

Hunter got into the act, too. He prayed over the whole garden: "Jesus bless garden. Provide food. Amen." How sweet is that?

So, here is what I planted in my cold weather garden so far: 7 loose leaf lettuce plants (we originally planted 8 but lost one to a rabbit); 6 head lettuce plants; 4 arugula plants; 6 broccoli plants; 1 Greek basil plant; 2 sweet basil plants; 2 flat leaf parsley plants; 1 dill plant; 1 rosemary plant. We will build one more raised bed to plant 'hot weather' veggies this weekend.

I have NO idea how much produce that will churn out, but it sounds like a lot!!! We threw in the herbs for good measure. Next year, I may add a third bed and plant even more lettuce.

Next, we'll plant hot peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and summer (heat-tolerant) lettuce. Then, in August, we'll clean out the cold-weather bed (except for the herbs) and we will plant more winter lettuce, mesclun mix, more lettuce, large-leaf sorrel (looks like spinach but has a sharp citrus flavor -- very yummy!), and brussels sprouts. Most if not all by seed. I hope to have sproutlings by early September (not sure), and harvest by mid to late September to October through the mild part of winter. How exciting!!!

The only disappointing thing... we did NOT ... AGAIN ... plant strawberries this year. And I am SOOO pouting about that. Can you tell? See? I'm pouting big time!

This morning, I left for work in tears. Well... not REALLY... but I was close to it.

And it is for such a silly reason. It really is. In fact, when I called to tell my husband about it, he laughed. Not at me, mind you... but still. He laughed. Sigh.

You see, the source of my sorrow has a lot of my emotion invested in it, and my heart just broke.

I'm sure by now, you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about.

Well.

Remember the raised garden bed my wonderful, talented, loving and generous husband built me? It is a thing of beauty. And this weekend, he filled it with a wonderful combination of top soil and leaf compost. I'm telling you -- it was a vision of beauty! (I may even post some pics soon!!)

I love this man.

And Hunter helped. He loves to help. Although, sometimes, his help creates just a wee bit more work for us. Anyway...

Hunter and I planted one batch of lettuce plants on Sunday afternoon. They are just beautiful. Tender, young, vibrant green – perfect. And this weekend? We were going to plant FOUR more batches of various varieties of tender, succulent, sweet lettuce plants! I just couldn't wait.

And today? I come down the stairs to leave for work and the crack-o-dawn, peered out the window to make sure yesterday's spits of snow and the cold evening didn't ruin my lettuce plants... only to see RABBITS!!! EATING MY LETTUCE!!!

Silly Rabbits! Lettuce is for PEOPLE! At least ... in MY garden it is!!!

Now to most people, the word "rabbit" conjures up wonderful thoughts of sweet, soft, fluffy, adorable, brown-eyed, floppy-eared, cotton-tailed spring-time animals.

In MY mind... the word "rabbit" is CLOSE to a swear word. Not quite... but really, REALLY close. I love the thought of providing healthy, beautiful, organic, home-grown vegetables and salads for my family. It does me a world of good to know they are getting good stuff in them. It is almost a source of pride. But I know that pride is a very bad thing ... so I try to steer away from it. AHEM.

As I was saying, those bad, wascially wabbits – they are chowing down at my family"s expense, and man! That just burns me up. I feel like going all "Elmer Fudd" on them... Be vewy, vewy qwiet. I'm hunting wabbits!

My husband promised to bring home some "construction fabric" and some stakes to remedy this problem. I'm thinking more along the lines of barbed wire and a big ol' shotgun. But then, I'm sure my neighbors would complain to... someone... anyone. I'm not sure who, though. We'll see if my husband's idea helps.

Have I mentioned how much I love that man?

So... I'm open to any suggestions. If you have them, PLEASE ... SHARE!!!

(Except for hot pepper flakes. That didn't work last year on my flowers, and it probably won't work on these gourmet rabbits – they would look at it as a tasty seasoning atop their sweet, tender, lettuce).


"Pardon me, but you know,

you wook just wike a wabbit!"

In Which I Admitt...

I have a black thumb.

And yet, I insist on having a garden again this year.

Because my husband does not have a black thumb.

Praise the Lord!

And who can resist home-grown nutritious goodness?

So last year, we had a small garden, and it did "okay." This year, I want it to do WAY BETTER than okay. Last year, we planted our garden right into the ground, but didn't rectify the soil. We purchased our plants, and before we had a chance to purchase good soil, sand, manure, etc... my sweet father-in-law planted our veggies in the clay. I'm sure my anxious son had everything to do with it.

This year, my husband -- the wonderful man that he is -- is building me two 8x4 raised garden beds, and I tell you -- I'm GIDDY with anticipation. I can't wait to fill it with good soil, manure, and sand, mix it up, and plant lots of wholesome things. One of them is built and will be filled with a good mixture of dirty stuff for planting this weekend. Hopefully, the next one will be built next week.

Last year, the bunnies ate all my green beans and my cantaloupe. That was a heart breaking thing. My peppers did not fare well AT ALL. They seemed to rot before they ever ripened. My tomatoes did all right, but not spectacular. And in retrospect, I'm thinking of keeping my garden sweet and simple. Tomatoes, lettuce, greens, cukes, Peruvian yellow hot peppers, and maybe a couple other things. I guess my plan is to focus on a hand full of things and do them well. And in the fall (late summer), I'll plant more lettuce, more greens, and garlic. Doesn't that sound delicious? Home grown garlic? Why, yes... yes it does.

It might be too late to plant strawberries... but I would LOVE to have some. We'll see how that goes.

So...

What's in YOUR garden? How are your plans faring?