Adventures in Vegetable Gardening

Hey everyone! I know it's been forever, but I was inspired to pick blogging back up. One of the things that has been consuming a lot of my time and phone conversations with my mom lately is gardening. It's been an adventure from the very beginning!

My family is pretty experienced in gardening, but we were novices when we started five years ago. Sure I had some books and some basic knowledge, but it's been a roller coaster ride! Here's how it's gone:

Year One - The fresh, virgin soil grew just about anything. Not that we had a clue what we were doing or how we should do it!

Year Two - The fresh, virgin soil was now used soil and we didn't know that we should probably add something to it (professional gardeners call it ammending the soil...don't I sound like a smarty pants!) I think this year I only got green beans and maybe some squash. At any rate, it was about the saddest garden you probably ever saw!

Year Three - No garden. Carter was born right when everything needed to be planted, so needless to say, nothing got planted!

Year Four - We tried to do some soil ammending with some field peas and oats the winter before, but it wasn't quite enough and we got lots of green beans, but little else. Apparently green beans can grow in any kind of soil! We use Blue Lake bush beans just in case you were curious! (Some of you got some monster zuchinis, squash and pumpkin last year, but those were grown in the virgin soil of the community garden, which I highly recommend if you can get a spot!)

Year Five - I decided that if we were going to even have a garden, we were going to do it right, so I ordered a load of horse manure to be brought over from Blacksburg. Wheelbarrow-load after wheelbarrow-load we covered the garden with the manure. Results? Awesome! Again we have tons of green beans (did I mention they grow in any soil?), some squash, tons of tomatoes and lettuce, and even a few peppers. I've decided that peppers are the hardest thing in the world to grow, so I guess it's a testament to the soil that they're even flowering. So far I've canned five quarts of green beans and five pints of salsa! I'm getting excited because I think I'll soon have enough tomatoes for making spaghetti sauce!! You know what else is growing in my garden besides a few sunflowers? WEEDS!! Yup, that's pretty awesome, right?

If anybody tells you that gardening is easy then they are LIARS!! Sure, some things are easy to grow (green beans anyone?!) but to have a lovely garden like the one's on Better Homes and Gardens you better be ready to work for it by pulling weeds, taking care of the bugs (plant marigolds and this will be minimal), staking your tomatoes, and did I mention pulling weeds? But one of the lovely things about gardening is experimenting. If something doesn't work, then try something else! For example, we tried the horse manure and it worked great! Another example, I bought a bunch of seeds from a local farm at a preppers festival back in April thinking that I would buy locally instead of at the big box store - big mistake. A fair number of seeds I planted from the local farm didn't come up, especially the spaghetti squash that I was particularly looking forward to. From now on I'll buy from seed catalogs (like Southern Exposure - NOT THE PLACE IN WEST VIRGINIA!!!!) or from Lowes/Walmart.

Even though it takes a lot of work to make a beautiful garden, it's so worth it when you can sit back and look at all the tomatoes on your windowsill and say "I grew that!" or when you pull the jars of beans and salsa out of your canner and say "I did this with my own two hands!" As someone who strives to be more self sufficient, this is one of the most satisfying things I can reasonably do. If you don't want to take on something as large as my garden, start with some pots and work your way up from there. You'll be glad you did!