July 15, 2020
Day 39: Gardening over the Years
For many years since we have been married, my husband and I have had a garden. When the kids were young we encouraged them to help plant and tend to (weed) the garden. As the old familiar story goes, everyone normally likes the food that comes from the garden but not all want to do what it takes ( canning, freezing, pickling) to get it to the table.
It was this way when my sister and I were growing up too. Part of the reason we moved to the country was mom thought we needed to know what grew on vines and what grew on trees and not be ignorant of garden and farm stuff. Every summer we would plant a huge garden. Instead of daily going out and weeding, the weeds would about take over and then mom would drag us girls out early in the morning to pull the pig weed. Little did I know what a valuable lesson this really was. It’s always easy to start a garden and keep it up for awhile but its not long before everything gets out of hand... way too many weeds and zucchini coming out our ears.
With two of our children away from home, I’ve cut way back on gardening. In fact I’ve tried something different. I’m growing several things in pots this year. So far so good. With the hot weather this year it has been a bit challenging. Plants all need water, sun, good nutrients and proper growing conditions or at least near good conditions. Pots make that a bit more challenging. Some things need lots of sun and dry conditions to flourish while others need less direct sun. How to get this all figured out when in pots can be interesting. Take for example zucchini. They grow big and bush out. Keeping the proper amount of water in the pot and nutrients to keep them flourishing keeps me always watching and tweaking. One nice thing is I can move the pots around if I want. It is a learning experience anyway.
I’ve had lettuce and zucchini out of the garden so far with many of the veggies loaded with blossoms. The weeding is the easiest so far. Which I really like. Hopefully I will keep tending to my little garden and see what all will be harvested. Here’s to gardening.