April 3, 2010

2009 - Early 2010 Summary

The 2009 gardening season has long been over, but I never told what the end of last year was like. I had a pretty good harvest for a first year. Late in the season the deer discovered my garden. They ate all my soybeans and some of my okra, sweet potatoes, and Red Eyed Beans. We got a few really large, sweet watermelon. I have never tasted a watermelon as sweet as that one was. I've heard that watermelons do well in unused soil and my garden area hasn't had a garden on it in 18 years. I believe that's why they were so good. Once I started school in the fall I had little time for gardening. I managed to find enough time to clean up the garden area and have someone come till it. His tiller broke in the middle of tilling it. (okra rapped around the tines and finally broke something in the tiller) When the leaves started falling we raked up all the leaves on our driveway and dumped them on the garden. Late in November I built a cold frame and Mrs. Mccasland helped me plant some things. She gave me Swis Chard and Kale plants and we planted lettuce from seed. I left the glass on the cold frame most of time through the cold winter. We had a extra cold winter this year with much more snow than normal. Early this year I cut up all the leaves on the garden with my mower so they would break down faster. My grandma gave me a tiller and I have bit by bit tilling part of the garden and making raised beds. I transplanted the Swis Chard, Kale and Lettuce out of the cold frame and into the garden.



One of the major projects last year was getting a watering system in. We got 8 free Soy Lecithin containers plastic shipping containers from the company that my dad works for. We bought PVC pipes and hooked them up to get the water draining off the roof. We ran 1 inch PVC to another pipe that goes to the garden and  now I can use all the water I want, for free. Because our house is one a hill there is a lot of water pressure at the garden.



My Corn harvest along with Lettuce seeds. I saved my own lettuce seed last year and they grew this year.



Random Pictures from Last Year:








2 comments:

  1. Ellis
    This is the first time I have read your blog. I hope others find your blog. This is an inspiration to see some one so young into gardening and in such a big way.
    Aunt B

    ReplyDelete