Backyard Garden
For years I wanted to have a foo garden. Growing up in New Mexico, that was not realistic. Moving to Tennessee the world became my gardening oyster. I started out small, herds, tomatoes and amazingly these pants did not die instantly.
This year it became possible to expand this experiment and shoot for he stars- vegetationally speaking. My landlord has decided to let the yard go wild and I took little island of dirt to create my plant paradise.
First Step
Of course the hardest and least satisfying step I coerced my husband into doing and that was to tear up the lawn that occupied my plant island.
It was much harder than I thought, so thank goodness I was not the one doing it. The other side of that was maybe it wasn’t done as thoroughly as I would have liked. As grass continues to be my nemesis.
Once the ground was cleared I had to decide what I was going to attempt. I didn’t have any money for this project at all so it is great that seeds are so cheap. Unfortunately their success rate isn’t so hot.
Second Step
The only money that I dished out was the soil I purchased to cover the newly cleared lot. The soil her is a compact clay. I used so dirt that had been rescued from another area of the lawn that was a mix of sand and soil. This combination isn’t ideal, but way better that spending all my money on packaged soil for an experiment that probably won’t succeed.
In the end I settled on:
Pumpkin
Watermelon
Corn
Sunflowers
Strawberry
Blue Berry
Lettuce
Beans
Broccoli
Carrots
*UPDATE As of this posting Lettuce and Broccoli are no more*
Step 3
Creating a garden plan for all of these guys proved to be quite a problem and in the end I doomed the corn as I put it into the area of the yard with the poorest drainage. Trying to balance those that need lots of sunshine, water and drainage is apparently not my calling.
My words of advice would be to make the plan prior to bribing your husband to clear the area. Trying to get him back out there to make more room for everything ended up not flying so many plants were sort of doomed from the get go- live and learn I suppose.
Step 4
Planting.
Two weeks in
I’ve got sprouting watermelons and one pumpkin plant coming up. I have had to cut back the grass to keep them from getting overwhelmed. All of the corn and sunflower seeds have been dug out of the ground by chipmunks.
Three weeks
I have a total of six pumpkin plants doing well and three watermelon plants trying their best. The grass is still killing me a the rain a drown my corn plants expect one champion.
Week Four
Pumpkin plants thriving although a princess plant snuck in. The lettuce sprouted and looked great then disappeared the next day. I assume something has decided that lettuce is delicious and they are not wrong. The carrots have also disappeared. Oh well.