Sunday, April 1, 2012

Farming....

Is hard work. Really hard.

I want to plant a garden this year. Unfortunately, our soil is terrible. Actually, I think calling it soil is generous. It's more clay than soil.  So, I enlisted Kyle's help when he was on spring break and we built a frame to make a raised garden. 8' x 10 ' sounded like a good size at the time. He went back to school, and I ordered up the dirt.

I have spent the better part of the week moving the dirt from here:


 To here:


That's three yards or about 50 wheelbarrows full of dirt. I'm already exhausted, and nary a tomato has been planted. Now I just need to figure out a way to keep the deer, fox and bunnies out of the garden.

So tell me, what are your favorite back yard garden veggies to plant? And what do you do with all your zucchini?

7 comments:

Sara said...

I tell you the boxed garden is a superb idea..one day I will have one:) We did the clay soil garden and between supplementing the soil to make it more veggie friendly and keeping the squash bugs away--it was WORK!

Anything home grown would be great in my book! There is an eggplant marinara recipe that I love. You could definitely use zucchini in it.

Steph Jacobson said...

We plant tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers in our garden and basil, rosemary, & sage in pots. I try to pick my zucchini when they are small so I'll actually use them. They're fantastic sliced and sauteed with a little olive oil.

aksherry said...

You are going to have a great garden!! Living in Alaska went can't grow much outside but I like to grow spinach, carrots, radishes and potatoes. I grow tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse.

JudyCinNC said...

I found that if I planted Rosemary near a plant that deer were particularly fond of, that somehow they did not take as much interest. Also, I never plant Zuchinni - too prolific and what works for me is to just buy from others whatever I need when I need it. Most enjoyable thing I planted last year was potatoes - what fun to go digging for them when needed. Good Luck from Judy C

KatheG said...

I grew up with a home garden my mother planted (dragging me along) and when the plants grew, I would sit in the middle of the garden and just eat whatever veggies I could find right off the plants. As for zucchini beside the usual bread - watch Forrest Gump and listen to Bubba on the shrimp - bet it works for zucchini. And zucchini makes the best pickle relish! YUM! Good luck and have fun.

Karen said...

As a child our family had a large garden. My dad was out there every night, maintenancing the plants as they grew. He would take one of us with him each night. We would take our turn at working in the garden.

Hubby and I had wild animals come and eat in our garden. One way to keep them out is to build sturdy 2x4 or 4x4 poles in the corners, and wrap chicken or rabit wire around the area to protect the plants. You can create a sort of large gate to get into the garden to work at one end.

We started a raised garden a couple of years ago. I insisted that hubby put rabbit wire on the under side. Blast those gophers. One afternoon we watched a gopher climb up over the board to get into my garden and eat my flowers. It was a site watching hubby running after that gopher. We then wrapped the upper area with rabbit wire.
I have been planting tomatoes in pots the last couple of years.

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