Watering the Garden

We water the garden using an irrigation system. Irrigating was another one of those things that I knew existed while I was growing up, but I didn't know much about it. Those same neighbors whose garden I envied growing up also irrigated. It looked like a ton of work! The way they irrigated was with a large hose that they moved from one area to another. As I attempt to recall it, I think I remember the hose having holes and the canal water would come out of the holes allowing it to be a little like a sprinkler. But I mostly remember thinking that it looked so heavy and difficult to move that hose over and over again.

When Garrett and I first got married, little by little he showed me how the irrigation worked. Luckily, they already had a sprinkler system that just utilized the secondary water, so there was no need to haul a big heavy hose around. Garrett also explained to me that the garden, orchard, and pasture were irrigated by flood. This meant that instead of using the sprinkler system, we use large pipes with spouts that pour out into the garden, which is on a very slight hill. The water seeps through the furrows and into the ditch at the bottom of the garden and it all soaks there. This flooding is a process that takes several hours, since the garden is basically soaking up its weeks worth of moisture.

I also wanted to give you a quick update on what's coming up, because that is the part I really enjoy!

This is a new Pepper! We now have four growing.

This one is getting really big!

This is another new pepper - even though it's tiny, it still counts!

Some corn.

This is squash - I believe it's butternut squash.

And this is acorn squash.

It will be fun when I have some more of the actual produce growing that I can show pictures of, but for now this is still exciting to me!

Weeding

Now, I know that I said that planting day was difficult to anticipate, but that was a large understatement in comparison to how much I dreaded the thought of weeding our massive garden. When Garrett mentioned that it was time to go out and weed the garden, I was prepping myself both mentally and physically for the draining process that it would be. The thought of crawling around on my hands and knees picking out the weeds definitely did not sound appealing. But I'm here to tell you - it wasn't that bad.

Call me crazy, tell me it was because I had low expectations, or even that the weeds weren't bad enough yet, but my overall response to the experience was that it could have been a lot worse. Come to find out, I didn't have to crawl around on my hands and knees to get all of the weeds. I honestly had no idea that a gardening hoe was a sufficient tool for weeding. Which probably goes to show just how oblivious I am about this whole gardening thing, but oh well.

We went out to the garden and weeded for about an hour, and even though I got two blisters in that small amount of time, we got a lot done. Granted, we didn't finish because I had to go to work, but I felt a lot better knowing that the next time I went out there I wouldn't be so scared.

Just a quick picture of some corn growing with weeds around it. Can you tell which is which?

In other news, we have some peppers growing already! I know, that would be fast had we planted them from seeds, but we were advised to plant the peppers and tomatoes as "starter plants" because they can be difficult to tend and grow from seeds. Regardless of this slightly cheater step, I'm proud of our small peppers that are starting!

And yes, those peppers are on two separate plants, so I'm allowed to refer to them as plural - peppers!

Planting

The dreaded long awaited time came to plant the garden. I'll be honest and say that I was really nervous! I was relying on the little bits of knowledge that I had gained from word of mouth, and Garrett and my upstairs neighbors previous experience.

We started by planning out the garden. This required knowing how many rows were in there. I'm here to tell you that there are 37 rows in our garden. Yep, you read that right. 37 of them! We told ourselves we wouldn't plant on every single row, so I felt a little better. We decided to put in carrots, peas, beans, bell peppers, tomatoes, corn, acorn squash, butternut squash, zucchini, two kinds of pumpkins, cantaloupe, watermelon, and potatoes.

After skipping a row for the plants that are eventually more widespread and viney, doing multiple rows of a few things, and allowing some neighbors to have a few rows as well, the entire garden was full. It's a little overwhelming! Mostly because it will be difficult to stay on top of all of the inevitable weeds. But we are determined to do our best!

Preparing the Ground

About a month ago, Garrett went out on the good ol' John Deere tractor and used two of the many attachments to start the ground preparation. First, he used the plow. I guess you could picture this plow as a large shovel that turns the dirt over. Then he used the disc to cut up the dirt and soften it. After you do those two things, generally you have to wait for the ground to dry again. Part of this has to do with it being done in April when it's still within raining season.

Recently, we did the final prepartions for the garden, by using a the John Deere and a few more of it's nifty attachments. First we used the harrows in order to level out the ground.

Not all harrows use that nifty log that we do, but it helps them to stay straight and together. Another slightly unorthodox thing that is typical in these parts is to sit on the harrows. The weight that comes from sitting on the harrows helps them to go deep enough that they really do level out any bumps that there may be. So we started out with Garrett driving the tractor (he loves that thing - he is always the driver) and I was sitting on the harrows. Over time, we found that my weight alone was not doing the trick. We went and got our upstairs neighbors to come and join us on the harrows, that helped so much that we were actually able to get the job done!

Once the ground was level, it was time to mark the ground using the marker - I know, quite the clever name.

 The trick to marking is that the furrows (small ditches in between the garden rows) need to line up with the irrigation. We irrigate the garden "by flood" as the farmers say. Basically meaning that instead of sprinklers or a hose, the irrigation goes through a large pipe and out specific holes, sending the water down the garden. It is best when it goes into the furrows.

When it came to digging the furrows, I was grateful I wasn't the one driving the tractor! Garrett did a good job lining the markers up with the irrigation lines, even if a few lines may have gone a little crooked... 

Even though I thought we were done after marking, Garrett corrected me and told me that we needed to dig two large ditches along a couple of the sides of the garden. After a little of my whining, Garrett explained that this was to keep the water in the garden and away from the house. I guess that's a good reason to do a little more work. Then he told me that we didn't need to do this by hand, there was another tractor attachment for the job! Man, that John Deere really know's his stuff! This attachment was basically a side ways plow that you could alter which way it went in order for it to push the dirt specific ways.

And then... The garden was ready.

Okay, is it just me, or is that thing huge?? It is quite large. At least it's not just Garrett and me working on it!

As I mentioned before, we generally plant on Memorial Day. We most certainly did that today. But I'll fill you in on all of that fun later.

Becoming a Green Thumb Wannabe

Growing up, I had neighbors that always had a gorgeous vegetable garden. Occasionally they would share some of the things they would grow. Anything they shared was always wonderfully tasty, but my family never grew a vegetable garden ourselves. Honestly, we barely (or maybe I should say hardly...) even maintained flower beds. I would hear people talk about gardening as a hobby and I thought they were crazy. To me gardening=looooong hours of weeding. Not my idea of fun, let alone a hobby.

We'll fast forward several years to where I am now. My husband Garrett and I got married a year ago. Garrett comes from a family who planted a large vegetable garden every year on Memorial Day, and they all helped prepare it and maintain it throughout the summer. When Garrett and I were dating, I would hear him and his family make comments here and there about it being someone's turn to do the weeding, or about the peppers being almost ripe enough and so on. There were a lot of times I got to eat what came from their garden, including the most delicious cantaloupe I've ever had. Just like those neighbors of mine, I thought their garden was great, but other than that I was happy it wasn't my responsibility.

Just after Garrett and I got married a year ago, my in-law's and their three youngest kids moved to South America to serve missions. Before they left, it was arranged that Garrett and I would live in the basement apartment of their house while Garrett's cousin and her family would live in the main part. Last summer because of all of the transition, no one around here planted a garden on Memorial Day. I was so grateful for that! I knew that I surely did not want to maintain it, nor did I really know how.

Now, back to where I am now. I think I've had a change of heart... I say think, because I haven't fully acted on it yet to know that it will last. But, even knowing that, I have come to see the benefits of gardening. Even though I still don't really know what I'm doing, which is a tad bit frightening, I've decided to work through the learning curve and plant a garden. With the help of Garrett and our upstairs neighbors, of course. It will be fun! Or at least I keep trying to tell myself that. Wish me luck.
I will be updating this blog with details of my venture through the gardening learning curve - so you can follow my journey!

Here's to Memorial Day planting, and learning to reap what I sow!