Usually, I go a little nuts planting the vegetable garden. We till up half the lawn and plant potatoes, corn, watermelon, gourds, cucumbers, onions, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkins, yellow squash, carrots, and radishes. Every year, our garden yields two gourds and forty thousand zucchini. I hate zucchini. But it grows, so I plant it.
This year, due to not having as much time and not feeling particularly ambitious, I decided to do a lazy garden. We tilled up a square patch of dirt next to the shed. I found some old green bean seeds from three years ago, so I dug a couple of holes and dropped them in. My mother had some potatoes that had grown eyes long enough for the potato to get up and crawl away on, so I cut those up and dumped them in, too. Our neighbor gave us some wilted pepper plants, so I made room for those. To finish it up, I took a cucumber that I'd purchased in April and promptly forgot about in the vegetable crisper, and gave it a proper burial in the yard. Voila! My vegetable garden was ready to go.
The idea of weeding didn't really appeal to me, so I found some old black plastic garbage bags and staked them to the ground. After a week, I finally remembered to cut some holes in the plastic to let the seeds grow through. I haven't bothered to weed since, and Mother Nature has been kind enough to dump a bunch of rain over the past month, so I haven't had to water, either.
I'm feeling a little smug and self-satisfied, I must admit. This has turned out to be the easiest garden I've ever planted! Nothing's come up yet, so I haven't had to chase any rabbits or woodchucks out of the yard. The bugs have left the black plastic alone (with the exception of the earwigs, who apparently find it the perfect breeding ground) and the birds haven't bothered the seeds. Occasionally I like to take a bowl of ice cream and sit outside within eyesight of the garden, which is my way of tending to it. This is the best gardening experience I've ever had!
Next week, I'll be discussing the exorbitant price of produce at the grocery store. Why have I never noticed how expensive green peppers are in summers past? It's a puzzler!
This year, due to not having as much time and not feeling particularly ambitious, I decided to do a lazy garden. We tilled up a square patch of dirt next to the shed. I found some old green bean seeds from three years ago, so I dug a couple of holes and dropped them in. My mother had some potatoes that had grown eyes long enough for the potato to get up and crawl away on, so I cut those up and dumped them in, too. Our neighbor gave us some wilted pepper plants, so I made room for those. To finish it up, I took a cucumber that I'd purchased in April and promptly forgot about in the vegetable crisper, and gave it a proper burial in the yard. Voila! My vegetable garden was ready to go.
The idea of weeding didn't really appeal to me, so I found some old black plastic garbage bags and staked them to the ground. After a week, I finally remembered to cut some holes in the plastic to let the seeds grow through. I haven't bothered to weed since, and Mother Nature has been kind enough to dump a bunch of rain over the past month, so I haven't had to water, either.
I'm feeling a little smug and self-satisfied, I must admit. This has turned out to be the easiest garden I've ever planted! Nothing's come up yet, so I haven't had to chase any rabbits or woodchucks out of the yard. The bugs have left the black plastic alone (with the exception of the earwigs, who apparently find it the perfect breeding ground) and the birds haven't bothered the seeds. Occasionally I like to take a bowl of ice cream and sit outside within eyesight of the garden, which is my way of tending to it. This is the best gardening experience I've ever had!
Next week, I'll be discussing the exorbitant price of produce at the grocery store. Why have I never noticed how expensive green peppers are in summers past? It's a puzzler!
Beautiful, right?
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