Green beans, okra, cucumbers, and Gloria

Say hello to Gloria, the newest tenant in the garden shed. 

I've never had a female tiller before, and I'm not sure how I'm going to like her. 

For starters, though I actually went to a store to buy her, she came out in a box, in a state of dishabille, not wearing her wheels or her handle.  I had to take the top off my Jeep to get her in it - not that I minded riding "topless" on this gorgeous, warm afternoon, but I may mind it in the morning when it's 60 degrees and I'm driving to work. 

She came with her own bottle of oil and a package of fuel stabilizer that I added to our existing gas can.  I filled her up, pumped her little fuel button a few times, and yanked.  It didn't crank on the first 5 pulls, but it did after a few more tries.

My intention today was to loosen up a row I tilled with the big tiller yesterday.  When I lined her up and hit the throttle, she immediately buried herself up in the soil, and I couldn't push her forward.  Eventually, I turned her around and went down the row backwards.

On firmer soil, which was plowed, disked, and tilled two weeks ago, she didn't bury herself up quite so easily.  I was able to work the soil going forward by letting the tiller run ahead and then dragging it backwards toward me as the tines turned.

She quit a few times during the job, but cranked right back up again.  Still, it peeved me that she quit.  Maybe she just needed to get her fluids flowing, or maybe I didn't have a throttle lever in the right spot.  We'll see how she does on the next job before we judge her.

Today I planted two rows of green beans, two short rows of okra, and six hills of cucumbers.  As I looked down those two long rows of green beans, I thought about how long it's going to take to pick them, and wished I'd planted two half rows today, and two half rows a couple of weeks later.  Pop-Pop used to tell me not to plant the whole garden at once, but I just can't seem to get that through my thick head.  I need to plant more squash, and some other beans and peas, but I'm going to try to force myself to wait a week or two, so everything won't come in at once.

Butterbeans, Squash and @(!)# Tillers

My boss turned me loose a little early today.  I rushed home, slapped a roast in the oven, put on my gardening duds, and headed for the garden with the intent to crank the little black tiller and prepare some rows for planting seeds.  I dragged it out of the shed, topped off the gas, and yanked the cord until I plumb gave out, but it wouldn't start.  I took its spongy-thing-in-the-metal-can off the front and sprayed some starter fluid down its throat.  On the third squirt, it fired off one time, but did not continue to run.  Nanny, who had joined the fray, suggested it might need a new spark plug.  I happened to have one on the bookshelf at my house.  On the trip back to my house, it occurred to me that the little black tiller uses a gas/oil mixture, not the straight gas I'd used.  When I got back to the shop with the spark plug and some oil, I drained the gas into a KFC cup, splashed some oil in it, and poured it back in the tank.  When I finally got all the parts back on the tiller, I yanked the cord once and it fired right off.  Yeah, it sputtered a tad - I guess my gas/oil mixture wasn't quite right - but I rolled him right out to the garden and got to work.

I did one whole 75-ft-long row and was working on the second row when the tines stopped turning.  Motor would run, but the tines wouldn't turn.  I abandoned it in the row and dragged out the big tiller to finish that row and do a few more.

Nanny and I planted Ford Hook butterbeans, 5 hills of yellow squash, and 4 hills of zucchini.  Nanny's church has a food pantry and gives food to the needy once a month.  Other churches do the same.  We designated the squash and zucchini row as the "church" row, and we will give it's produce to the church food pantries.  I told Nanny, "If God's going to make anything out here grow, this row ought to grow." 

I had intended to get some okra and green beans in the ground today, but the rows where the green beans are to go were a little too wet to work, and I plain forgot to buy okra seeds.  Need some cucumber seeds, too.

I came home and searched online for tillers.  Little Black ain't going to make it much longer.  He's 10 years old and has been used like a rented mule.  He is notoriously difficult to crank, especially for the first time each season.  It would probably cost more than he's worth to repair him even if I knew how to repair him, and so I shall be shopping for a replacement in the next few days. 

Does it make me a geek that I'm excited about the prospect of a new tiller?   ;)

Rainy Day Tomatoes

Earlier this week, a fellow told me that he already has green beans beginning to run up their poles.  When I accused him of lying, he swore he was telling the truth. 

It made me feel bad about my own garden.  On that very day, my garden contained only 12 drowning tomato plants and 12 hills of crookneck squash seeds which had not yet sprouted.  I resolved to get busy this week, weather permitting.  For the first time ever, I made a scaled drawing of my garden and laid the rows out on paper.  I bought 12 more tomato plants, some pepper plants, and some herbs.  The soil was too wet to plant them that day.  It was still a tad too damp when I came home from work today, but I planted everything, anyway.  I wanted to get some seeds in the ground, too, but a rain shower came up just as the last two plants were going in the ground, so I high-tailed it.  It rained enough to soak my shirt before I could put away the tools and gather up the debris.

And now that I am inside and dry, the rain has stopped, and I'm considering having another go at getting some of those seeds in the ground.

...annnnnd we're OFF!

Yesterday evening, we (The Husband, Nanny, and I) planted 12 tomato plants and 12 "hills" of squash. 

The 2015 garden is officially under way!

Hallelujah!

I have the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart...!*

Rumor has it that my garden is being tilled as we speak.  I have not yet seen it with my own eyes, but The Nephew called up here a little while ago and said that his buddy, Chris, wanted to borrow our disc, and as a favor to us, he (reportedly) disked our garden with his tractor!  Not only that, but he came back with a pull-behind tiller and is TILLING it. 

Somebody pinch me.

Earlier today, unaware of Chris's offer, I bought 12 tomato plants, feeling downright determined to get SOMETHING in the ground in the next day or two.  It supposed to rain tomorrow, so I may be out there digging holes in the dark.

* If you were raised in the South and went to church, I apologize for the brain worm.

Breaking up is hard to do....

Gardening wouldn't be such a b*tch if I could get people and equipment to obey me, instantly, and without debate. 

Every year, I have trouble getting my spring garden plot ready to accept seeds and plants.  It is most often because I depend on other people to break the soil; they get around to it when THEY are ready, which is understandable (I mean, they *are* doing me favors) but unsatisfactory when I am itching to plant and they aren't.

I thought I might have that problem solved last year when I went to a lecture on soil and learned about "no-till gardening," a method that does not require a deep breaking up of the soil, which, theoretically, should have enabled me to plant whenever I choose.  You've heard me sing that no-till blues song ad nauseum;  I will simply remind you that last year's garden was a colossal failure, for a variety of reasons. 

So, this year, it's back to breakin' and plowin', with the added joy of contending with the hay and the newspaper and the landscape fabric left over from last year's no-till fiasco.  My older son graciously offered to do (and did) the break-plowing for me this past Easter Sunday.  The job required about an hour of work just to get the old green tractor running - something about the battery, which is an easy solve IF you have all the right stuff.  I wanted him to disc the garden, too, but the tractor began to leak water from somewhere just as the breaking was finished, and the disking didn't happen.  I am left with rows of basketball-sized clods separated by deep trenches, over which I have sprinkled 120 pounds of lime that needs to be worked into the soil.

Dang it, I am *ready* to plant, even if the garden is not.  Today was an absolutely beautiful day, and I decided to see what my big black tiller could do with the clods and trenches.  It is supposed to rain this weekend, and I thought I might work up a small patch of soil for some spring greens before the rain turns the clods to bricks.  Big Black fired up right away (check!), but it didn't much like those clods, and I had to man-handle it a good bit to keep it going the way I wanted it to go.  All that wrestling wore out my winter-limp muscles really fast.  Finally, I gave the tiller its head and just followed where IT wanted to till, resulting in a pulverized curlique that meanders all over the garden, not the neat rectangle I'd envisioned.  Sooner than I'd hoped, I gave up, cut the engine, and left the tiller where it sat in the garden, for I had brought other power equipment - a riding lawnmower that had muled a heavy gas can down Nanny's long driveway - that I could put to good use.

I had cut up a snake with the tiller in the garden right off the bat (I don't think he was poisonous, and I might have saved him if the reptilian portion of my own brain had not kicked in before the logical portion of my brain could decide not to run over him), so I know that they are out and about.   And Nanny's grass had gotten really tall.  Nanny thinks any snake is a bad snake, and I hated to think about her walking upon one in the tall grass, so I mowed her yard.  In the process, I got too close to a shrub, hooked a limb under the lawnmower fender, and snapped it right off.  Pow!  It went flying into the neighboring bush.  I plucked it out, laid it on the lawnmower deck between my feet, and moved on.

When the mowing was done, I had to get the tiller back to the shop.  I'd left it leaning sideways, astride a big clog and aimed in the wrong direction.  When I finally got it off the clog and aimed the toward the garden shed, I noticed that one of the wheels wasn't turning.  Evidently, I'd twisted the tire loose from the rim as I was trying to turn the tiller out of the trench.  It limped back to the shed, and I got on the lawnmower, settled the gas can on top of the fender between my feet, and headed home.

There was enough daylight left to mow part of my own yard, and since it's going to rain tomorrow, I decided to go ahead and mow the high-traffic part of the yard.  On the second lap, I hit something serious - a big metal rod - in the grass.  I just knew I'd torn up the lawnmower, but it kept on trucking.  As I was about to finish the back yard, the lawnmower ran out of gas.  I still had the gas can between my feet, so I hopped off the mower and filled up the tank.  The lawnmower only grunted when I got back on and tried the key.  After about 50 grunts, with the battery beginning to sound tired, I got off the mower, shot it the bird, and came in the house, disgusted.  About 2 minutes later, The Husband went out there, twisted the key, and the thing fired right up.

I didn't shoot it the bird again, but I wanted to.

And I still don't have the garden tilled.

But as I was mowing, I could see Uncle B up the road on his tractor, mowing the part of his yard where he plants his garden.  If my guess is correct, he will soon be swapping the mower for a disc, and when he does, I'm going to beg or bribe (or both) him to do mine, too.