The "Victory" Garden (?), 04/17/09

I pretend to be a gardener sometime..it's in my genes. I have to thank my grandfather for this as he was known for, among many other things, an avid gardener. To give you an idea, here's a photo from '74, when I was just 2:





that would be my father and my grandfather in there. I'll forgive them for what they made me wear...it was the 70s. The garden extends a good 20 feet to the left and at least 100 more feet to the right of the picture. To give you a feel for the depth, the corn in the background...those rows went back a good 100 feet. If I had to guess, I'd say it was around 150 feet wide and over 250 feet deep.

I've got the green thumb from him...it's probably a good thing, because Sheri has a black thumb (every plant she touches tends to die...at least it includes weeds that she just reminded me that she pulls). The houseplants think she's a stranger most of the time. So, when we bought our first house, I immediately bought a sod cutter and made a tiny little garden to sow my seeds (groan). Since there was no room for anything, I did raised beds, made tripods, and had moderate success.

We moved from the first place, where I have a little more room. No, it's nothing like what my grandfather had - I think our entire town could have fit in his garden (there are only 600 people in our town, so it's not that far of a stretch). I've got a 14X17 plot...have tiller, will plant!

Since today was our first really nice day where the soil was relatively dry, I decided to get started. I'm switching gears and am going to attempt to do a lot of inter-cropping this year, which means placement and timing are going to be extremely important. This could be a major disaster (and it almost was...I very nearly threw a rake and a hoe across the yard today), but we're going to see how the garden grows.

So, here we are...Friday, April 17th:







The plot is tilled, and I have the early crops put in (onions, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, and radishes). More goes in next week, so I'll try to update this every Friday or so.



With my luck, we'll get a hard freeze next Thursday, accompanied by 2 feet of snow, just as the veggies emerge.