I have been talking about having a garden this year since this will probably be one of the rare times we can do it. When I mentioned the idea to George, he was immediately interested. In the past, he has grown some stuff and was enthusiastic to try again. Now when a city dweller starts a garden, there are all kinds of unreasonable expectations floating around in her head. I imagine watering beautiful vegetables at dusk, the smell of damp earth coming up to me. I imagine harvesting ripe tomatoes and strawberries and eating them still warm from the vine, all juicy and tasty. I can’t imagine that all kinds of bugs will try to beat me to those ripe vegetables or that they will simply look poorly and not very appetizing. I can’t imagine a frost killing everything off before it evens starts looking like a garden.
In any case, we are going to try. George has planted stakes around the roughly 25 x 25 feet area which will now be called the garden. He has some netting ready to prevent the deer from eating our crops. A couple days ago, the boys and I got some stuff to enrich the soil which George then tilled in with a rototiller he borrowed from somebody (gypsum to break the clay and some organic fertilizer which stinks up the place). We have seeds ready to go as soon as the soil has rested a little bit: carrots, beans, bell peppers, peas, corn, cantaloupe and squash. Down the road, we will be getting some tomato and strawberry plants. Wish us luck.
