Vegetable Garden -- Take Two!!!

Some of you may remember that I planted a veggie garden last year. Most of it was an experiment of what I could and could not grow and in what types of containers. I will confess, it left me feeling like a failure, very crabby, and not wanting to do it again this year. All winter long, when I could have done the work WITHOUT the sweat, I stared disgustingly at the containers, happily growing weeds that grow so well in the Florida winter. Why is it that weeds have NO problems????? (As a side note, there is a series of about 100 or so videos on Utube by a guy who has made it his life long hobby of learning about weeds and what you can eat and how to prepare them. Search for “Eat the Weeds”. All I can think of, is ME, rooting along the ground like a possum, looking for something edible, and end up eating poison ivy or something!!!)

But as fate would have it, my brother, who lives in Maine, is really “into” the gardening thing. He is blessed to have a father in law who has shown him so much, and now it is my brother’s goal to grow enough of whatever grows there to sustain him through the year. And you know how it is, we always “preach” about what works for us. So. . . . . My brother had a pep rally with my sister, and talked her into growing what grows here in Florida and learning to like it. Somehow, I got in on this, and started cleaning out my pots.

As for our experiments of last year????? The $1.00 bags that you get at the grocery store, etc., worked fine as plant containers, but by the end of the season, they were done. Dry rotted. When you tried to move them, they fell apart. But they drained well, held enough dirt, were easy to keep weeds out of, and they did not collapse or cave in. The most sturdy and nicest looking were the dark green ones from JoAnns. The worst were the red and black ones from the Family Dollar Store. Worth the $1.00, but now I have to get something else.

The Styrofoam ice chests were fantastic, but don’t try to move them once filled with wet dirt and plants. They will break. Duct tape (You know, the stuff we all bought tons of after 9/11) worked well to hold the broken pots together, and are still there, waiting for my new plants. The tops served well as “saucers”. Talk about eye sores, though. But my green beans loved growing in them. I put a circle of wire fencing around the ice chests, and the beans grew and produced throughout the summer and fall. One success story.

I also purchased huge blue storage bins at Big Lots last year. MUCH cheaper than plant pots of the same size. Now I know why. The plastic became brittle and I can’t move them without them cracking. So they will just stay where they are for this year.

My favorite pots of all look like the old whiskey barrels. They are actually Styrofoam, light weight, but have been painted and look like stained wood with metal staves around them. I’ve had them now for about 8 years, and they are still in good shape.

So. . . . The gal who was NOT going to garden this year now has green onions, radishes, carrots, beets, peppers, green beans, yard long beans, pigeon peas, etc., planted in you-name-it buckets.

It’s a lot of hard work for Buster, though. But he loves it. Since he still has all his “childhood anxieties”, he will NOT go out the door without me with him. So this gives him long outings, chances to pee on every living thing, stick his nose in the holes I dig for planting, runs with dead root balls, etc. And yes, an occasional drink from the hose. He does know what “No peepee in the in the pots” means, but did NOT know that this also meant the little seedling trays. Yuk!!! They got a good watering!

I’ve learned I should stay away from Nurseries. Why is it that I never learn???? Just because there is a tiny, live plant in a tray at the Nursery does NOT mean it will grow into something edible in MY yard down the street!!!!!! But I still do it! And the only one who profits is the Nursery. Every one that I bought means another pot, more dirt, more fertilizer, more sweat, with the ending of , “See???? I told ya!” But here I am, dirty hands and feet, sweat and snot pouring off my face, nails forever ruined, but I did it. And that’s the whole heart of it --- that I could do it!

I need a Man!

I came to the conclusion yesterday that I need a husband. All my life I prided myself in the fact that a single woman could do anything (well, maybe just about anything, as I CAN't fix the car!). My sisters are so spoiled, and I remind them of that whenever they yell for their husbands to come and do something for them.

But yesterday, I faced the fact that I needed one of those things called a husband. You see, I was in Walmart. I pushed my cart to the Garden Center and thought while I was there, I would put a few bags of dirt in the back of the car. No use coming home with an empty back when I still needed to fill some pots. I didn't see the usual check out counter there by the exit, so I asked the guy working there by the dirt bags, "How do you do the dirt thing?" In a very crabby voice, he said, "You put the dirt in your cart and to to the check out, Mam!!!!" And he turned away and never offered to help me lift those suckers or put them in my car for me. For the very first time in my life, I wanted to call him something very nasty. I walked away feeling horrible with myself for feeling that way, mad because I had no dirt (there was no way I could lift those bags into a grocery cart and then lift them out into the car), and I sort of felt old and disabled to some degree. I just couldn't believe that this guy wouldn't help me!!!! So no dirt yesterday!

I did go to one of those "preppie" you-pick farms on Saturday and bought a grocery bag full of chicken poop. Can you believe $5.00 for a shovel full of poop????? It would be worth raising chickens just for that!!!!!! But, we wanted it so we got it!
At first, it was going to be poop tea bags to make the manure tea. But then, the whole bag got wrapped into an old tee shirt and sunk into a big bucket of water to soak and steep for a while. Last night I got a sprinking can full of that smelly stuff and gave my plants a good, healthy swig of that "gold" and said goodnight to them all. I wonder if they will all be dead this morning?????

My zucchinni squash plants are all blooming profusely. Since I have seen no bees at all, I took a Q-tip and tried the self-pollinating thing. Went around twice to each flower, hoping there were male and female flowers in the bunch and that each got pollinated right. I'll have to do it again today, as there are more flowers opening.

Today. . . . I guess I go back to Lowes for my dirt. And then I'm done til fall.