As many have, I’ve been laying low and staying home as a result of the Corona Virus Pandemic that has swept the world this year. While this has been at some moments a frightening situation, it has also provided me with the opportunity to save time commuting to work and just generally spend more time at home. I am very fortunate in that this has been more disruptive than problematic for me. I’m working from home full time and my husband is also able to do that on and off as well. I have plenty of outdoor space of my own and our house is big enough we’re not driving each other crazy (most of the time). I think like a lot of others, food shortages were on my mind, this winter. This may have planted a seed of motivation in some decisions I’ve been making lately.
Finally winter has given way to spring and shortly it will be full blown summer. A vegetable garden has been something I’ve wanted to invest time in since we purchased our house upstate over 3 years ago. I hadn’t until this year, had the time to get things moving. Also in years prior we had let our side and back field run wild. It was overgrown and full of plants too tough to be cut with a regular mower. Our neighbor invited us to chip in on a kid with a brush hog, to come take care of the shared field and we were overjoyed we wouldn’t have to try and find someone ourselves!
The planets aligned this year is my point. For all the reasons. So we did it.
I’m about to get very detailed about our planning process. We tossed around all kinds of locations. Should it be close to the house for ease of watering and deterrent of pests? Probably. But what if we wanted to expand it eventually and really; we like our yard the way it was. We settled on an area of the side field where we could easily keep it mowed because it was just an extension of what we are already keeping short. That weekend we laid a 22” x 25” area of field with landscaping cloth. There is a single tree right outside the spot which offers partial shade for both the plants and gardeners.
Ok so we picked a spot, now what about a fence? We have an abundance of deer in the area so this was a necessary step. But what kind of fence? What kind of posts? How tall? Which material? How can we even get the material without going to a busy hardware store in the middle of a time when this is a risky move? We researched wooden posts, and realized we’d need concrete, a post digger, the posts themselves and just a lot of work to accomplish that. Then serendipity struck again. Our neighbor told us he had a sledgehammer and step ladder we could borrow to sink T-posts and a friend in the area let us know they had a bunch of extras T-posts lying around we could have. Sold. We decided heading to Lowe’s was a necessary part of the fencing component and since we’d need dirt as well we went for both in one go. Everything we needed was outdoors and everyone was masked up so it felt like a calculated risk as the harvest would keep us out of the supermarket. Due to the height of the T-posts we settled on a 4 ft fence, and luckily that was the only size metal roll fencing that was left at Lowe’s.
I’m sure you’re wondering… did you build your raised beds or buy them? We bought them. What a waste of money? Maybe. But, I think if we hadn’t bought them we wouldn’t have a garden today. I cannot count the amount of DIY articles I looked at regarding the bed construction. We have a miter saw. I figured out all the dimensions and we could have had the lumber delivered. BUT, would we have actually done it? I’m not so sure we would have. So we settled on buying 4 raised bed kits from a shop on amazon. They are made of cedar, have a 5 year warranty and seem pretty sturdy. We also had 2 raised bed kits made of a composite material we had purchased from SAMs club 2 years ago (I told you I’ve been wanting to do this for a while). They were just piled in the garage, so this felt like the perfect time to employ them.
As I mentioned, we also picked up about 35 bags of soil over the course of 3 trips to the garden center. In hindsight I wish we’d gotten a soil delivery from a local business and avoided all the lugging. That said, due to the location of the garden I’m not sure they would have been able to dump the dirt right by the garden, and with the bags we were able to drive our car down so dropping the bags off was no trouble.
I am very concerned about aesthetics, but sometimes you have to go with what’s practical in your real life and save the perfect wooden posts and matching raised beds for the magazines. And so we did.
I just today ordered something that will unite the space and I can’t wait until it arrives. Pea Gravel. I’m looking forward to dumping it over all the exposed landscape cloth to further end the weeds that are trying to bust through and claim the garden space we created as a non temporary structure. Our field occasionally floods, so I’m really hoping this wasn’t a mistake. Time will tell. I also got us a couple of chairs and a small table to place under the tree right next door so we can relax next to the garden in the shade.
The last and most important component to the garden puzzle are the plants! The same friend with the T-posts recommended a local nursery Greene Bee Greenhouse about 30 minutes away from my house who have online ordering and beautiful starter plants. I bought too many. We ended up with: 2 patty pan squash, diplomat melons, butternut squash, marketmore cucumber, poblano pepper, shishito pepper, 2 kinds of strawberries, 3 kinds of kale, cauliflower, ground cherries, cucamelons and a bunch of herbs (4 kinds of basil, cilantro, sage, oregano and 2 kinds of mint).
Sounds like more than enough for 6 raised beds right? NOT FOR ME. I also planted more marketmore cucumbers from seed, radishes, spinach, arugula and okra. To my surprise everything I planted from seed is sprouting!! Not sure the things i planted from seeds will produce actual food, but I’m hopeful. The starter plants are definitely flourishing 3 or 4 weeks later. I’m keeping an eye our for pests and the need for more support for the plants as their fruit begin to appear. Another friend gave me the tip I may want to vine my cucumber plant as it grows as it will increase my harvest, so I’m in the market for the right lattice or string situation. I may also need to move it closer to the fence if I go that route.
Anyway, thats all for now on the garden project front. I’ll keep you updated once the pea gravel arrives and the plants continue to grow. It’s amazing to watch them get bigger over the span of a week. Until next time, I leave you with this view from the garden, which is one of my favorite things right now.
