Seeds in the ground

I cranked up the tiller at 9 a.m. and got busy.  Three and a half hours later, I'm sitting here in the cool, a little sunburned, but showered and shampooed and feeling accomplished.  Between me, Nanny, and The Husband, the garden is made. 

What went down was 4 rows of purple hull peas, two rows of Fordhook butter beans, three short rows of Marcotte green beans, 12 hills of cucumbers, six hills of butternut squash, and a row of okra.  I have space left for more crookneck squash, but I don't have any seeds.  I may run get some before the day is over, for it is supposed to rain in the next few days. 

Although I'd intended to do half of the garden in the "no-till" method, it turned out that only the tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cabbages, and peppers got that treatment.  I tilled the rest of the garden as usual.  I'd hoped to plant one row of beans in the no-till zone and one row of the same kind of beans in the tilled area so that I could compare their growth, but it didn't work out that way.  Long story.

When we prepared to dig holes for the plants in the no-till zone, we flipped over every other hay patty, and dug holes where they'd been.  After we planted, we put down more newspaper (HINT: wet newspaper is soooooo much easier to work with), separated the hay patties, and sprinkled loose hay around the plants.  This resulted in having about 1/2 of each hay patty left over to sprinkle atop newspaper and cardboard that we laid between the rows to keep down weeds.  I am crossing my fingers that we won't have to do much weeding in those areas.  Stay tuned to see if it works.

I am also hoping that this newspaper/hay treatment will cut down on blight infestation.  For the past few years, half of my gardening time has been spent fighting blight.  Hopefully, this mulching will separate the plants' leaves from the soil and keep down the rain-splash transfers of fungus from ground to plant.  As soon as the tomato plants settle in, I'm going to dose them with the mixture I used last year, which seemed to work as well as (if not better than) any commercial fungicide I've used:  one gallon of water, and a 1:1 ratio of baking soda and vegetable oil.  (I used 2 tbs. of each per gallon of water).  The baking soda creates an alkaline environment that the blight fungus doesn't like; the vegetable oil helps the soda stick to the leaves.

Tomatoes, Squash, Peppers

The garden looks more like a garden today.

The Husband, Nanny, and I spent several hours yesterday morning digging and planting.  We took a break around noon and went back to work about 5 p.m. when the garden was in shade.  Two hours later, all of the plants were in the ground in the "no-till" section:  48 tomatoes, 12 squash, 12 zucchini, and 12 pepper plants.

I did some tilling in the other half of the garden, but did not get finished.  Tomorrow, we'll be at it again, finishing the tilling and planting the peas, lima beans, and green beans.


 

Ground-breaking News

Wednesday afternoon, when I had come home from work and was about to walk across the road to the mailbox, Uncle B. came motoring toward me on his riding lawnmower, cutting the grass along the road bank.  I waved at him, got the mail, and started back toward my driveway.  By this time, he'd mowed past me and made a U-turn and was coming back.  I heard the blades shut down as he approached.  He eased to a stop at the end of my driveway and shut off the motor.

"You doing all right?" he asked.

"Yes, sir.  You?"

"I'm getting along pretty good, I reckon, for an old man.  I want to ask you something.  Are you going to raise a garden this year?"

(He's got his garden in, already.)

I said, "Well, yes, sir, I intend to."

He said, "I saw you out there putting down hay way back in the winter, and I thought maybe you were going to plant an early garden, but I don't see nothin' out there but a few cabbages."

I explained what happened:  I was going to try the "no-till" method; I planted cabbages, and later some tomatoes, but a freak late frost took out the tomatoes; then I got sick with a sinus infection and felt too bad to work in the garden; then it rained; and rained; and, yeah, well, I'm just late.

He nodded, asked after my mother, cranked up, and drove away, leaving me with a big guilt trip.

You see, I'd toyed with the idea of not raising a garden this year.  When I said that to The Husband later that evening, he gave me THE LOOK - the one that silently shouts HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?  I knew what he was thinking:  All that time and effort and money to put down newspaper and hay, and she's thinking about not having a garden....

So, between Uncle B. and The Husband, the guilt forced me to the garden center today to buy plants and seeds.  I got 48 tomato plants, a dozen or more pepper plants, and squash and zucchini plants.  Got purple-hull pea and Fordhook lima bean seeds.  Meant to get some cucumbers.

I came home and played a mean trick on The Husband.  He usually mows our yard and Nanny's on the weekends.  I need him in the garden tomorrow, so I mowed our yard yesterday and Nanny's yard today, to take away his excuse. 

Yeah, I'm mean that way.