July 17, 2010: Looking Back

It's been two whole years, folks! I've blogged 459 times, and my followers have grown from 0 to 191 192 193 194 (and I appreciate each and every one of you!)

Looking back, it all began.......July 17, 2008

Garden Diary 2008

I’ve gardened for all of my married life until 2004, when I was diagnosed with colon cancer and had to have abdominal surgery. I’d felt so ill that spring that I tore out my lovely little garden, which was right outside the kitchen door, and planted grass. For the next three years I pouted about not having my vegetable garden, but didn’t feel well enough to tackle it until spring of 2008. I started small, just a three-foot wide strip next to the fence at the east side of our property, and a small space next to the fence on the west side, next to my two blueberry bushes. I planted three "Celebrity" tomatoes, two red bell peppers (six more went into flower gardens in the front yard), a double row of Burpee bush beans, each row about 8’ in length and planted three more rows, each two weeks apart, using leftover seed from 2004. I also planted one hill (4 seeds) of yellow crookneck squash, one hill (4 seeds) of zucchini, and a tiny two-square-feet patch of mixed lettuce for the pet rabbit. In the blueberry bed I planted two cherry tomatoes and two pots of bush cucumbers.

Everything was growing well, although I lost a few of the large bean plants and half of the squash seedlings to cutworms. I protected two of each squash plants with cutworm collars made of toilet tissue rolls, and never saw any more damage. Then, on July 1, we had a couple of very strong wind gusts that split our large maple tree in half, and the entire east garden was crushed under a huge branch.

We had to call a tree removal company to remove the entire maple tree, and they were quite careful when they lifted the branches off the garden. Quite a few of the bean plants were wiped out, and a few stems broke off the zucchini plants, but there wasn’t a lot of damage otherwise. Of course, the fence was crushed, giving our two puppies access to the garden, so they found the bed of lettuce was a lovely, cool place to nap and nibble.

I immediately purchased new fencing (under $100 for materials) and moved it further into the yard to give me space for some raised beds. I had quite a bit of lumber in the garage, saved from several years ago when we removed a deck from the back of our house. It was good redwood, 2x6 lumber, and enough to build four 4’x4’x12” deep beds and one 3‘x4‘x6“-deep bed that I‘ll use for shallow rooted greens. I purchased a yard of top soil for $18 and a yard of “leaf and twig” composted steer manure for $20. That was a good buy, as I had asked for regular compost but they were out, so they gave me the more expensive blend at the same price.

I had planned on leaving the beds empty until next spring, adding lots of chopped up leaves and more compost later this fall. But…I couldn’t resist. So here is a diary of my garden, my very first summer planted garden. I’m hoping I have a harvest before winter.

I purchased 50' of wire fence and 8 metal fence posts to keep the puppies out of the garden, as they are loving to dig in the new beds of compost. Hopefully we'll get the fence up soon.

The garden and the blog have grown a lot in two years!