Despite monsoons, storms and locusts. Kidding (I hope) about the locusts, but this year has been a real challenge if you are trying to grow your own food. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but what is up with this weather?
Yesterday was pretty much a washout, although Mother Nature was nice enough to give me a half hour break so I could unload the feed from my car and get it into the feed cans. I had planned on getting the babes (aka little pullets) out for the first time, but not in that downpour.
I think that having raised beds has saved what I planted this year. Most of the water has drained out, but even raised beds have their limit. Yesterday, I spent the day running errands and did some clean up work in the hayport and in the house. Today, I put the second level of tires on my potato plants and conjured up a soil mix to finish them off. I finally have blossoms on my peas, who seem to the the only ones enjoying this soggy, cool weather. The beans are coming along, but I realized that my tidy little string trellis will not be up to the job, right, Erin? I have a plan for trellising the Chinese red beans that should be sturdy enough. Pack rat that I am, I have a store of 1-1/2" PVC that I will use as cross supports. If it works, I will take pictures. If not, I will never mention it again and hope you forget and don't ask what happened.
As I was out and about yesterday, I noticed that there are a lot more home vegetable gardens this year. I mean a LOT. It sure is a tough year to start, but I hope those folks have the fortitude to stick with it. Food prices are high, gas prices are high, feed prices are high, and nothing is going down. When I drove by a house in town that was just sold this spring, I saw that the young couple who bought it had put in a nice big garden patch, a chicken coop and a compost pile! Things are looking up!
7 comments:
What a year for first time gardeners. It is good to see people getting back to planting food again. Lets hope it continues.
Nice to hear about "regular people" with gardens, too bad that ever fell out of favor - our country's food issues would probably have never gotten so out of hand if everyone gardened as much as they mow the lawn. Here we have drought and now I have blight - we could all use a break!
Know what you mean....first my garden was drenched and I lost most of my seedlings and had the direct-sowed seeds washed somewhere downstream and now it's getting to hot too fast and everything is burning up.
I harvested my meager pea plantings just today, they had to go 'cause they were starting to burn up already!
It's sad that it took things to get so out of hand before people started planting their own gardens, but I guess better late than never, right?
Keep planting people! :)
Jane - Yes, everything seems to be a "fad", doesn't it? Maybe this will stick.
Erin - You are so right. What's old is new again. I could do without the return of platform shoes and hot pants, however.
Carolyn Renee - My peas JUST blossomed. All three of them. I can hardly wait for my "crop". I am hoping that people find alot of satisfaction in growing their own food and that it becomes something more than a fad.
We just ate our first salad out of our garden today; better late than never! We're getting a light shower at the moment, which will hopefully help all the little vegetable seedlings that have come up and those that are yet to come up. We have lots of green strawberries at a time when they normally would have been nearly done; yes, it's a strange year on the other side of the country, too.
You sure do make me laugh. (And here I've just been waiting for platform shoes and hot pants to come back in.)
I sure do wish we were seeing more gardens in our area but I can't find them. Probably because you have to be crazy to try gardening in a season that is only three and a half weeks long.
It IS a terrible year for people to be gardening for the first time, for sure. I'm betting a lot of them will give up, too, because even when things go really well, learning to garden and preserve the food comes with a HUGE learning curve.
I wonder if Mrs Obama planted a garden this year? I haven't heard. But you are right, lots of folks are giving it a try. With any luck it will send a clear message that people are tired of bad food. Either that or the weeds send them all screaming back to the stores!
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