Our Pathetic Garden

Gardening has never come naturally to me.  Growing up my mom and dad grew tomatoes.  Maybe they grew other things as well… I remember tomatoes.  I was never really part of the process.  Plants grew, it was brought inside (from either the garden or maybe the grocery store?), food was prepared, and I ate it.  That’s what I know. 

Anthony grew up with the master gardener himself… his dad.  He grew everything.  Anthony remembers rows and rows and rows of corn, lots of potatoes, tomatoes, squash, peppers and much more.  He helped to till the dirt many times over the years.  However, he doesn’t seem to have picked up the green thumb gene.  It must skip a generation.  It’s the only logical explanation. 

I personally have only heard stories up until now about this infamous garden my FIL grew each year.  My in laws moved from their home around the same time Anthony and I got married.  They had lived in rentals until a couple years ago.  This is the first year since then that they’ve had a garden to speak of.  I’m jealous!

Since moving into our home over 7 years ago we have tried to grow a garden 5 times.  Each time we got nothing!  Actually that’s not exactly true…

Garden #1 – The plants grew and actually produced but we weren’t diligent enough to keep up with the weeds.  Then we kind of forgot about the vegetables.  Yep, we’re awesome!

Garden #2 – Tried a new thing (supposedly weedless) … Square Foot Gardening.  We followed directions to a T!  Went to the nursery for transplants, planted, things were growing well for a couple of weeks then we had a late freeze which stunted the growth of the plants.  They all lived the duration of the respective plant’s life span and even got a few flowers but never produced anything.  The plants were too small. 

Garden #3 – SFG again… nothing grew.  All were transplants again but didn’t grow.

Garden #4 – (last year) – same as the year before.

Garden #5 – (this year) – Tried a traditional garden again.

Well, it kind of worked.  This time we did it all from seed.  We started them inside where they all took off like champs! 

But I knew better than to get my hopes up.  All we knew was that we were desperate for something… ANYTHING… to grow.  Which is why we grew radishes.  (Yuck!)

HECK!  We would have planted SPAM seeds if we thought they might grow!!!  Seriously.

Anyway, I was right in not expecting much of my seedlings.  Once I got them outside they all shriveled up and died.  All but one…

BIG MAX!  He’s so big I can’t even get him all in the picture.  {That’s a lie… I just don’t want to step back far enough for you to see that we never got our grass put in.  Shh!}

He is the winner!  A pumpkin plant.  The bees like him, too.  

So, we may not get anything to actually eat from our garden but by golly, we’ll definitely have something to carve this Halloween!

But I did plant seeds again.  This time I just planted directly into the ground.  Most of it didn’t grow.  They didn’t like my black thumb.  But we did get a few things. 

Corn…

(What is this?  Is it flowering already and we won’t get corn?  Anthony says it’s normal… I’m skeptical.)

Lettuce… (Italian Blend.  Way too strong tasting for us.)  See all that extra space around the lettuces?  That’s where other plants were planted but didn’t grow. 

Radishes… (no pics because they’ve already been harvested.  We got a total of 4!  I think I planted at least 15. :))

Another variety of pumpkin… (Little Max)

These ones are in the SFG box.  Growing slowly and slightly yellow.

Garden Beans… (no beans yet)

Oh, and look what Big Max is doing!  Hooray!

But look what else he’s doing… Boo!  :(  Maybe it’s normal?  {Please tell me it’s normal!}

**Things that were planted but never grew… tomatoes, carrots, peppers, spinach.  Cucumber and Cantaloupe were also planted and actually started growing but didn’t stand a chance against whatever pest decided to come and eat them while they were still too young and innocent to defend themselves.  Stupid bugs!**

Did you plant a garden this year? 

 

Calling all Green Thumbs

I am NOT a plant person.  It's not that I don't like plants.  Plants are great!  I just seem to have a knack for killing them, not helping them thrive and grow.

My mom always had plants in the house while I was growing up.  Spider plants are the ones I seem to recall the most vividly but she had all sorts of them.  Once I got married, I really didn't care to adorn my house in plants because I already knew what the end result would be.  The watering of plants never crossed my mind so they would live a very short, dry life in my home.

In fact, my idea of a succesful plant run happened just this past Mother's Day.  At church, each woman over the age of 18 (moms or not) was given a plant.  There were a few different types being passed around and I ended up with a lemon basil plant.  I was excited to plant it and use it as I had never heard of a lemon basil plant before.

We mothers are given a plant just about every year at church and every year, I manage to kill the plant within a week and a half.  Yes, I am that awesome!  But this plant was going to be different.  It would thrive, it would flourish, it would be used in all kinds of culinary creations.

It lived a total of three whole weeks...

**SIGH**

But that's a record for me!  Never has a plant lived longer under my care.  It's even true of our garden...

When we first moved into this house, we planted a traditional garden.  Apparently, we are horrible weeders because the whole thing was infested within a couple of weeks despite my efforts of keeping them out.  So, the garden thing was put on hold for a couple of years.  Then, just last year, I decided that we needed to try something different.  Enter... Square Foot Gardening!

It was the answer to my not-so-green-thumb woes!  We have a countless number of neighbors who have had nothing but success with this method of gardening and according to the SFG book, the method is absolutely fool-proof!!!  We couldn't lose!  So, we set to work.

Anthony built me a SFG box (4x4) for Mother's Day that year {even after managing to kill yet another plant from church} and we bought the material for the soil and the plants.  Virtually no weeding required.

Oh man was I excited!  We were finally going to have a garden... our very own garden!  A succesful garden!!

The plants were thriving and we watched them grow each day for about a week.  We could see the progress they were making and then BAM!!  A late freeze hit and we were unprepared.  The poor plants were forced to endure the freezing temperatures unprotected.  The poor cucumbers didn't make it through the night **sniff**!  But the rest of the plants seemed to be doing alright for the moment.  We watched over the next week and realized that NONE of the plants had grown.  Not a single centimeter!

What was happening?  They were still alive so why weren't they growing?

Over the next couple of weeks, the plants continued to stay green but they just wouldn't get any bigger.  It was extremely frustrating and everyone around us was able to start picking fresh produce from their gardens.  Our plants were so tiny that they couldn't produce.

We finally came to terms with the fact the late freeze had stunted their growth.  We let them 'try' a little longer but after the time that each plant should have produced it lovely fruit (or veggie), they withered up and died.

Needless to say, we decided to forego the garden option once again this year and just be content to buy fresh produce at the grocery store or the farmer's market.

And did I mention that I've never... EVER, planted flowers in the flower beds in my yard?  NEVER!  I know, it's sad.  Maybe next year...

But anyway, yesterday my kids and I took a walk in the neighborhood......



{yes, C finally got the Hawk buzzed off! ;) and he left me with a double stroller, only half full}



 

and we noticed some odd looking... flowers?  weeds?



What are these?  They are beautiful but I don't know what they are.  Can you help me out?



And how do they get to be so colorful and in so many different colors?  Brown?  Black?  WEIRD!