The garden is a ton of work, let me tell you. It starts out as grass, but you gotta till. And till. And till. And till. Then you have to pull the weeds out by hand. Then make rows. Then pull the weeds out by hand. Then we planted some stuff. Then we got another late freeze and lost most of it. In the midst of this, you are still weeding and watering. Snow doesn't count as watering either, by the way. I replanted most of what I lost from the freeze and the snow. We did plant carrots, but they didn't even sprout. Unless they looked like weeds and I pulled them, oops. Needless to say, I didn't replant those. Instead, I planted more lettuce and garlic. :-) My garden has the all the makings of salsa planted in it.
Things I have learned.
1. If my ten year old wants to talk, we have "garden time" and go out to weed, just her and I. (Did I mention there is lots of weeding required? If you miss it for a few days or a week...yes that did happen once...it's hard to get caught back up.)
2. Patience. I know everyone says this, but if you have a patience problem, like me, grow a garden. It trains you in the way of patience. Stuff doesn't grow overnight and just because you watch it doesn't mean it will grow quicker. Trust me, I tried that too. God's timing is not our timing and guess who is in charge of your garden. That's right, God. I believe He made it that way on purpose. I am a NOW, kinda girl, but guess what, this garden has taught me there is no such thing as now in gardening. Unless it's a weed growing. Then there are lots of nows. It has taught me that hard work and elbow grease is good for me. Each day I would go out and check on my empty ground to see if they sprouted. Sometimes I would not weed, just in case, because I didn't know what the plant would look like. Thank goodness because I would have pulled the lettuce out. When I finally got some sprouts, I called everyone out and we celbrated! Now, my potatoes look like monster plants. My corn is beautiful. My peas finally started grabbing onto the fence. My grapes are looking gorgeous and I am training them on the second wire now. Oh, and my baby plants that I started in the house, well, they are ready to be planted in the garden this weekend! Things are really looking good and it's because God taught me to wait on His perfect growing season.
3. I think I said this, sort of in number one, but seriously, don't procrastinate. If you don't feel like weeding or working in the garden, do it anyway. If not, you will work double time trying to get caught back up. If you think about it, life is that way. If you half a.s something, pardon the language, it will take you more time to go back and fix it then it would have if you just did it right the first time, so just get 'er done. Your plants will thank you for it and so will your boss.
4. Gardening counts as excercise. Yes, I checked and it does. You can burn calories. You work all kinds of muscles. Ask mine, they are sore. Plus, you get so into what you are doing out there that you can easily lose track of time and forget to eat. Yep, did that too, lots. So, less calories taken in and more calories burns equals fat loss. Yay for me!
I know I have more things I have learned, but for some reason, my mind is blank, so I will just show you a couple of pictures and close out. Be looking for more blogs to come. I need to get back in the habit of doing this, so come check it out again.
This was our first harvest. Unfortuneately, the only ones who like radishes are James and myself. Bummer.
This is this morning. If you look close, you can see the potatoes on the left in the front and the corn in the back. The grapes or on the right hand side.
I was working the garden one day and heard the strangest sound...I turned around and look what I saw. Yes, that is a peacock on top of my house. There is a neighbor about 5 house up and she has rescued two. One of them wandered a little far away from home. I guess she needed a better look to get her bearings and make her way home.
Be blessed,
Until we read again...
