GARDEN INSPIRED

I remember when I was eight or nine years old, by brother, sister and I lived with my aunt and uncle in a small town called Corning, located in northern California, it is also known for it's olive groves. We had a garden with all types of vegetables : string beans, peas, tomatoes, carrots, to mention a few. Us kids got to help pick the vegetables as they ripened. To small children as most adults know is a adventure (you know kids like getting dirty).

My aunt would have us sit on the back porch with the picked produce (string beans, peas) and two bowls, one with the vegetables in and the other to put them in after we had snapped the ends off in preparation for cooking or canning. Back then I really didn't like to eat my vegetables like most kids, but I liked being able to pick them and now as an adult I want to learn to grow them.

Last year we planted a garden and hopefully learned from some of our mistakes we made last years. Our corn, melons and carrots were a flop, but our tomatoes did fairly well. After having fresh grown veggies especially tomatoes and then buying them from the store after our last one was eaten, well I'm hear to tell you what a difference in taste. The store tomatoes haven't got the flavor of home grown tomatoes, they are not even worth buying. We resent buying fruit and vegetables that have been picked too early and flown in from far places. So we are growing our own veggies again this year.

In hopes that this years garden isn't a flop we purchased two greenhouses, a small one for inside to start the seeds and a larger one for outside. So when the seeds turn into seedlings and need to be transplanted into larger pots we then move them to the greenhouse outside. Instead of purchasing all those different size pots we needed for transplanting I decided to recycle my used plastic bottles of all sizes by cutting off the bottoms and then to make drainage holes I heat up an ice pick and poke several holes into the bottom of the bottles.

Now to get the outside tilled and fertilized, and not to mention without the use of pesticides. We prepare the rows and mounds for us to complete the last stage of transplanting, placing larger plants into the outside garden area once the threat of frost has passed. We are keeping an update of our garden's progress on our blog.

Now I get to see if this year I can have a garden that is as good a producer as the garden my aunt and uncle had when I was a child. And now I can't get yelled at for getting dirty.

Written by: Rita Wimbs