The Stephwagens: The Great Garden Experiment: Week 1

Depending on how well you know me, you may know I have a bit of a black thumb. To the level that I struggle to keep spider plants alive indoors. I've been downgraded to airplants - take a look at my post on making a terrarium for those here. They only require sunlight and water, vs sunlight, water, and soil. So far, they seem to be doing rather well.

. . . I probably jinxed myself by saying that.

I'm hoping I have more luck with the outdoor gardens at our new house than I've had with houseplants. Especially because the new house has a big lawn with LOTS of gardens. I haven't even started to think about the flower gardens, which probably need watering/weeding/planting. Especially the virtually empty circular garden in the front yard that has one bush and a bunch of tall grass growing in it. I tried convincing Tim the grass was supposed to be ornamental, but he isn't buying it.

I was all gung-ho about getting our vegetable garden ready, though! It is also pretty large at 28' x 11'. When we moved in, the soil was a pale grey colour and it was full of what I believe were little tree saplings. My sainted mother-in-law (who is an amazing gardener) took a crack at it on the Wednesday of the week we moved in and spent hours weeding and then breaking up the soil. We probably could have planted from here, but it was still looking a little lacklustre, so Tim went that Saturday and bought 2 cubic yards (a full trailerload) of compost and borrowed a friend's gas rototiller to mix it all in with the soil. It looked pretty gorgeous after that, all dark and fertile. The compost was from A & T Scott Concrete just outside of Lakefield and it set us back $72.32. A bargain, considering my sister told me that compost up near Owen Sound would have cost her over $150 per cubic yard!

Garden post-compost and rototilling. The pre-existing plants are rhubarb and raspberries.

I had downloaded a gardening app on the iPad (Garden Plan Pro, which cost $9.03 on the App Store) and planned out what and where I would plant things earlier that week. I love the planning portion of things, so I really enjoyed this. Tim, of course, reviewed it later and vetoed a bunch of things. I had space for 112 pea plants, which he apparently thinks is a little excessive. I still don't agree - I LOVE peas! It's okay, though, there's always next year.

Preliminary garden plan!

On more mother-in-law gardening advice, I had gone to Farmboy in Peterborough that Friday to pick up all the plants and seeds we would need. I may have gone a little bit overboard. I wound up paying $117.93 for 38 seedlings (6 basil, 4 cilantro, 2 parsley, rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, lemongrass, garlic, spaghetti squash, and 19 tomatoes), 16 packages of seeds, and one bag of seed potatoes. Yes . . . 19 tomato plants. Somebody shoot me. Or, at least, they should have a warning light at the till when someone comes through with that many tomato plants. They should have to ask you how many people you're feeding, and if it's anywhere under 'Army', they should limit your tomato plants. There are so many kinds!! Oh well. I hope everyone we know loves tomatoes.

On another note - Farmboy in Peterborough at the end of May is a NUTHOUSE. The parking lot is a disaster, there are too many people to count, and the aisles between the seedlings are so narrow. They easily have the best selection of plants I've seen, but it was a bit of a traumatizing experience. Right down to the woman at checkout who creepily loud-whispered as I was paying, "Don't buy seeds here! Put those back! You should be ordering them online from Stokes!"

I also bought a few gardening necessities from Home Depot while I was in town - a spade, a trowel, gardening gloves, a hose nozzle. That cost $74.53. Tim bought bamboo garden stakes at Home Hardware for another $6.20.

Mom and Dad came up to visit that weekend, and brought me a few gardening related housewarming presents from Shannon - a currant tomato plant that she grew from seeds she took out of tomatoes from the actual pasta salad at our wedding, and some more seeds. I was SO excited about the current tomato plant!! Most of the seeds she sent I just didn't have space for, but I did make room for a few acorn squashes, which both Tim and I love.

Before Mom and Dad left, I had Dad cut down some of the garden stakes for me to 1' lengths so that I could lay out the garden with twine for planting. I spent all of Sunday afternoon barefoot and pregnant, planting the garden!! I wish Tim had taken pictures of this, because I was wearing a fedora, bikini top, and shorts, and I was covered in dirt. I looked completely ridiculous, but it was so much fun!