Garden 2020 Between A Rock and a Weird Place
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Texgal
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- Posts: 156
- Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2020 8:25 pm
- Location: Round Rock, Texas - Zone 8b
Garden 2020 Between A Rock and a Weird Place
I started to call this year's garden "A Little Bit at a Time" because my wish was to have everything ready to go and planted out end of March/first of April, but with Covid and the rest of life's demands, this Spring it was get whatever I could done as I had time and eventually it all came together finally. So it was a bit of a slog to get going but now that we have been Spring and most of Summer, we're enjoying some of the rewards of our hard work.
A brief background, I gladly credit a man named Larry Hall for making me a vegetable gardener. I learned his rain gutter grow system and for the first time I grew food successfully. It was so empowering. The two key advantages of his system is the air pruning and the automatic watering. I won't go on about that but the auto watering helped me the most as this is what I have the hardest time getting right. I felt so empowered that the 2nd year, I got a community garden plot at a private community garden group. it was very small 4x20, so it should not have been a lot of work, but it was an absolutely horrible experience. I was tired all the time from weeding, rats and bugs got everything, i got very little harvest. About the only thing I was successful at was growing Zinnias.
So I went back to Larry's system but I'll tell you folks, I'm getting close to the big 6-0 mark and even with his system, it is a real grind mixing soil and filling grow bags and tubs. I've just gotten to a point that if i'm going to continue to do gardening, I've got to find ways to make it easier on my old worn out body, LOL!
This year I had the opportunity to rent a 20x20 plot out at the city's community garden. That was pretty ambitious of me with my state of mind, but I had been following some market gardeners on the 'tube, and was intrigued by their practice of occultation where they use black plastic for a number of weeks to kill the grass and weeds under it and then plant. Plus I optimistically coaxed my niece's 8 & 10-year-old boys into helping me and as long as I gave each of them one of the raised beds that were there that they could plant what they wanted, they were game to help.
I wish I had taken a before picture of the plot. It was full of dandelions and johnson grass and all manner of weeds almost hip high and there was no way I was going to till or pull up those weeds to plant. But the boys helped me clear out the raised beds and I weedeated and covered the rest in the black plastic. We started that at the end of February and my goal was to be able to pull it the first of April, giving me 6 weeks for the black plastic to do its majic.
The boys got to plant what they wanted in their boxes. I made them responsible for weeding and watering their own plants but I helped them out. I used some EZStraw with tack to mulch the beds and they look very pretty. But I got into a little trouble with them because the bag I got I didn't realize it was the one with grass seed in it. They were very unhappy with me for a while about that.
The boys planted whatever they wanted and were responsible for watering and weeding. I used EZStraw with tack to mulch each bed and it looked great at first, but I made the mistake of getting a the version that had grass seed in it. They were NOT happy with me for a while. I kept telling them though that it was the easiest weeding they would ever do. 
Refrigerator pickles were a big hit this year. We'll be doing another round soon.
My first time with corn. I count it a success because we did get a dozen or so ears, but almost all had earworms and corn flea beetles, so I definitely need to spray more often with some BT or Spinosad. The clothespins did not help or maybe they would have if I had sprayed earlier and more often. Roughly half were pollinated, so perhaps I planted too closely at 8 inches. Be interested in anyone's suggestions on that.
Smalls harvests of cream cowpeas, but by golly they are there every day!
I asked them if all the hard work was worth it and they said Yes!
And this is really what it's all about, isn't it?
A brief background, I gladly credit a man named Larry Hall for making me a vegetable gardener. I learned his rain gutter grow system and for the first time I grew food successfully. It was so empowering. The two key advantages of his system is the air pruning and the automatic watering. I won't go on about that but the auto watering helped me the most as this is what I have the hardest time getting right. I felt so empowered that the 2nd year, I got a community garden plot at a private community garden group. it was very small 4x20, so it should not have been a lot of work, but it was an absolutely horrible experience. I was tired all the time from weeding, rats and bugs got everything, i got very little harvest. About the only thing I was successful at was growing Zinnias.
So I went back to Larry's system but I'll tell you folks, I'm getting close to the big 6-0 mark and even with his system, it is a real grind mixing soil and filling grow bags and tubs. I've just gotten to a point that if i'm going to continue to do gardening, I've got to find ways to make it easier on my old worn out body, LOL!
This year I had the opportunity to rent a 20x20 plot out at the city's community garden. That was pretty ambitious of me with my state of mind, but I had been following some market gardeners on the 'tube, and was intrigued by their practice of occultation where they use black plastic for a number of weeks to kill the grass and weeds under it and then plant. Plus I optimistically coaxed my niece's 8 & 10-year-old boys into helping me and as long as I gave each of them one of the raised beds that were there that they could plant what they wanted, they were game to help.
I wish I had taken a before picture of the plot. It was full of dandelions and johnson grass and all manner of weeds almost hip high and there was no way I was going to till or pull up those weeds to plant. But the boys helped me clear out the raised beds and I weedeated and covered the rest in the black plastic. We started that at the end of February and my goal was to be able to pull it the first of April, giving me 6 weeks for the black plastic to do its majic.
The boys got to plant what they wanted in their boxes. I made them responsible for weeding and watering their own plants but I helped them out. I used some EZStraw with tack to mulch the beds and they look very pretty. But I got into a little trouble with them because the bag I got I didn't realize it was the one with grass seed in it. They were very unhappy with me for a while about that.
The boys planted whatever they wanted and were responsible for watering and weeding. I used EZStraw with tack to mulch each bed and it looked great at first, but I made the mistake of getting a the version that had grass seed in it. They were NOT happy with me for a while.
I kept telling them though that it was the easiest weeding they would ever do.
Refrigerator pickles were a big hit this year. We'll be doing another round soon.
My first time with corn. I count it a success because we did get a dozen or so ears, but almost all had earworms and corn flea beetles, so I definitely need to spray more often with some BT or Spinosad. The clothespins did not help or maybe they would have if I had sprayed earlier and more often. Roughly half were pollinated, so perhaps I planted too closely at 8 inches. Be interested in anyone's suggestions on that.
Smalls harvests of cream cowpeas, but by golly they are there every day!
I asked them if all the hard work was worth it and they said Yes!
And this is really what it's all about, isn't it?
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~ Emmie ~