Getting ready to garden

A few days ago I tilled up most of the garden plot. Sunday afternoon I moved a huge pile of leaves into the garden and tilled the whole place again. Since the garden is overgrown with a year's worth of grass and weeds, I still have a lot of work to get ready to plant.

The dog decided that the fresh dirt was too good to ignore. Kodak thought I built the perfect digging pit. So last night, while the dog watched and looked sad, I fenced the garden with 3 foot tall wire fencing.

This weekend we will add some compost and plant some onions and lettuce. It still may freeze, so we won't put out anything big for a while.

The kids helped me draw out a plan for the garden. We are going to grow watermelons, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, onions along with some herbs. Plus this year we may try to grow corn.

I always try at least one new thing each year. In the past we have tried purple hulled beans. They tasted like you would think a purple bean would. At least 15 different tomato varieties. We finally settled on Romas and Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes. They grow best in our garden. This year, we might have one plant of another variety.

We tried squash and pumpkins. We got one of each. Too much work to harvest one. We tried birdhouse gourds. The vines damn near took over our backyard. And the gourds molded when we tried to dry them. Too much work to end up with none. And gourds stink to high hell.

So this year we are sticking to the basics. I want the kids to see some success. And hopefully we will all have fun while we get really dirty.