The Garden

This spring we decided to to turn half our backyard into a garden.   When we bought our house three years ago, half the backyard was planted with St. Augustine and the other half was planted with Bermuda.   We got rid of the Bermuda to start the gardens.  I've tried gardens in the past will little success.   Usually, I get to busy and don't water them.  I only agreed to this project with 100% participation from everyone else in my household.   We even solicited the kids to help.

My husband scoured Craigslist for a few weeks looking for a rear tine tiller.   We finally found one that met our requirements.  It a A) didn't require too much work B) wasn't sold before we called on it and C) didn't cost as much as buying one new.   Jason was looking as far as Austin and we found one less than 10 miles away from our house.  While searching for the tiller, we took a soil sample and sent it off to TAMU for analysis.   We added the needed nutrients and got started.   Here it is in process.

We pulled tons of grass and weeds out of the areas.   I researched on the internet what the best plant placement would be.   From my research, I learned we should plant the corn and tomatoes in the north most point of the garden.   The reason being that when they grew tall, they would not shade the shorter plants.  My husband then made raised rows and we planted.  We are using multiple soaker hoses to irrigate.   This has worked well considering we still have a garden despite the severe drought.  At first, we found the squirrels chewing into our soaker hoses for water.   We put out a five gallon bucket of water which we change every 2 days.  Now they drink out of it instead of chewing into our hoses.  A pond is in the long range plans to provide water for the squirrels and birds.  The pond will also encourage the toads to hang around and eat pests.

The garden looks like this now.  The corn is as tall as me.

So far, we have corn almost ready for picking.   We have picked and eaten: grape tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, green tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, okra and tons of zucchini.
This was our first picking of zucchini.   They were so big, I sent one to school for my daughter's teacher.  The largest one measured 12" and it wasn't dry or bitter.   One was enough to feed my family of four as a side dish for one meal.

Here is the cucumbers I sliced for dinner one night.

I made some fried green tomatoes with some of the tomatoes.   I fried the okra as well.   The rest has been steamed, grilled, or sautéed and eaten.

We are making notes this year how to improve and plant for next Spring.  We plan to move the cucumbers to a less severely sunny spot, plant more corn rows and increase our number of green bean plants.   We also do not plan to raise the rows.   It makes irrigation a bit of a challenge.   It has been fun to do the garden.   My kids love going out and picking the veggies.  They have also eaten everything I have prepared out of the garden.  I firmly believe if they grow it, they will eat it.

We have been creative to keep the squirrels out of our garden.   I read on the internet we could make a spray with tabasco sauce, vinegar, and water.   It would repel animals.  We also set out a fake owl which we move around.  The animals ate a few things when our home made repellant wore off.   We reapplied and they have stayed away again.  We have used Neem Oil for some ant control.   A friend suggest Orange Oil, but I haven't gotten any yet.   Jason read coffee grounds work as well.  I'm trying that for the ants.  Since I love coffee guess where the grounds have been going.  :) Here is a view of the okra.  You can see a marigold we planted for pest control.  We have been able to grow without pesticides.

We are also thinking of a Fall garden filled with lettuces and cool weather plants.   There are many possibilities...