Day Three of the Garden Installation has come and gone and although the garden is officially planted it took longer and was more difficult that I'd anticipated. I've noticed that most things take longer and are more difficult than I think they'll be, but I like to chalk that up to being an optimist, rather than thinking that it's because I have a looser grasp on reality than I should. The garden, in all of its splendor, is quite large and I've been thinking of it as the "Go Big or Get Out" garden in a sort of anti-homage to Earl Butz.
This is the garden after the sod clumps were removed
Just to track the garden's progression, we first had to remove all of the sod clumps and de-dandelion the plot. As I mentioned before, the space where the garden currently is hasn't been used as a garden for many many moons and had reverted back to its original state of mown field grass. After getting the biggest sods clumps removed we had to wait for the old horse manure delivery. Once the dump truck had dropped off the horse manure it had to be spread across the garden.
It took Bob, Mike and I several hours to load up wheelbarrows and truck them across the garden to be spread in an even layer on the entire surface of the garden. (My Dad broke his toe the day before in a Man v. Footstool incident, so he was in charge of sitting with the doggers.) In fact, it was such tiring work for these two soft city-slickers that we left the farthest corner uncovered, figuring that we'd finish up the following evening. That plan didn't work out quite as we'd anticipated, since as we were finishing up dinner on the patio I noticed a farmer on a blue tractor motoring up the road and then turning into the driveway. The local farmer who was going to till the manure into the soil so that we could plant was here. Early. Luckily he'd brought along one of his sons and he pretty much spread the remaining manure single-handedly. I think that we were all privately wondering where he'd been yesterday and what he was doing tomorrow.
Here is the garden, all tilled and ready for planting
The garden was ready. On to the planting. Which is where we hit a snag. You see, Bob had traded hours of labor at a local greenhouse for the space to start her seeds. A brilliant plan. The first seeds she started were the peppers and she was careful to put only one seed into each little plastic container. And then only 1/3 of the peppers sprouted. Determined to avoid this result with her tomatoes she planted multiple seeds in each plastic container. We were faced with 6 flats of tomato seedlings and ended up with five (yes, 5) rows of tomatoes in the center of the garden. Having spent so much time raising those tomato seedlings Bob was reluctant to let them go.
So after getting the tomatoes planted we had to squeeze in all of the other vegetables, including putting a row of carrots between two tomato rows and planting the leeks as a border around the garden because we'd simply run out of room. All in all, we managed to get everything planted including: 5 rows of tomatoes, peppers, brussel sprouts, potatoes (3 varieties), swiss chard, carrots, beans, melons, cucumbers and leeks. Now all we need is for everyone out there to do your best rain dance and pay homage to the plant gods so that every thing actually grows and produces vegetables!
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