One of the main reasons why I was so impatient to dig up the new potatoes was that I wanted to get our summer garden planted before it got way too hot. Also, I knew we'd be going to the beach for a week after school was out and I wanted the garden in the ground so the plants could start developing their roots. I didn't want to ditch the plants right after planting in case we needed to re-plant anything. One Thursday afternoon, two hours before one of Eli's t-ball games started, Josh and I worked like crazy to get the first part of the garden in. Josh was a tilling, hoeing, and fertilizing machine. He formed all the rows for me. Then, it was mine and Eli's job to plant the seeds and cover them up. We had minutes to spare before needing to rush to Eli's t-ball game but we did it. We successfully planted 9 rows total of snap green beans, lima beans, and purple hull peas. Hooray!
About a week later, our little seeds had started to grow. I sent Josh this picture one day when I got home from school with the caption, "We have seedlings!"
The next phase of our summer garden was to make the second bed. In this bed, we planted three rows of okra, three rows of sweet potatoes, and then mounds of squash and zucchini. We also bought a bundle of railroad cross-ties and used these as a border for our garden this year. We're hoping this will help Josh when he has to mow and weed eat the yard. Plus, it makes our garden look really neat. What wasn't so neat was the fact that we had 14 of these massive suckers and they were insanely heavy. I'm not one to shy away from doing hard labor or helping my hubby when it comes to moving things, but when I picked up my end of the first railroad cross-tie I realized I was going to a) break my foot from dropping it b) break Josh's foot from dropping it or c) both. I quickly told Josh we had to find another way to move these things because there was no way I could carry it. Each one weighed probably 300 pounds or more (at least it felt that way). Josh, being the creative person he is, rigged something up with his lawn mower and let it do the bulk of the work for us. All we had to do was get the cross-tie out of the trailer and onto the ground, secure the rope around the end, and then Josh drove the lawnmower and pulled the cross-tie where it needed it to go. My job was to direct the cross-tie while he was pulling it into the correct spot. It was still lots of hard work, but we did it. Whew! Those things are not going anywhere!
Here is the picture I posted on my Instagram wall after everything was complete :) This picture doesn't quite show just how massive our garden is. It's huge, y'all...
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE growing my own food, but I'm already thinking of just how much picking I'm going to have to do when everything's ready. Hello, lower back pain and walking like a hunchback! Pain is temporary though and all those yummy vegetables are definitely worth it! I'll post an update soon on how the garden is growing. Happy gardening, peeps!
No comments:
Post a Comment