Garden 2011

It is now springtime in Missouri and that means that it is time to start a garden. I have never grown a garden before as New Mexico is not necessarily the best place to do such a thing. I am a total rookie when it comes to gardening so please forgive if you see something that sounds silly. 

The soil here is excellent and as far as I know nothing has been grown on it for years other than grass. So I sectioned out an area for the garden in a corner of the yard that receives plenty of sunlight and turned it over using a pick and shovel. I guess that is a strange deal for people in the Lexington area because people here kept asking where I got the roto-tiller. We live in such lazy times. I understand the size of garden may dictate the use of a tiller, but there is nothing wrong with a little labor. That is also easy for me to say since Eugene helped with the pick work. 

Anyhow, when it came time for the planting of the seeds I really wanted my daughters to be involved so they could see the process. Last week they planted some sunflower seeds in pots and got to see them sprout, it was an exciting thing for them. 

Emma is learning to write and finds great pleasure in writing letters and words she sees on anything. I used these tongue depressors to mark the rows. Emma got one and made this cool design. I think it is pretty creative using the word "vegetable" and drawing the dirt and plants growing. This is now the image for garden of 2011.

Here is a shot of Nova helping to cover the row of sunflowers that will line the back fence. Nova likes sunflowers and I about a month ago we had dialogue that went like this:

Nova- "why aren't there any flowers?"

Me- "because the sun hasn't some out yet."

Nova-  "well, we need to plant some sunflowers, dad"

Here are three more shots of her

Emma was busy creating the vegetable stick in photo one above while Nova and I were planting seeds. Here she had finished and helped to place the other sticks and cover the seeds. I am planning on a second planting session here in a few more weeks to stagger the harvest times to help with even use of vegetables, we will see. I will be paying close attention to see how the garden works out so as to learn more. 

These are the sticks marking the rows.
I decided to start easy and only plant a few things, some of which are herbs. Everyone has asked me about tomatoes and why I did not plant any. Well, my dad plants tomatoes every year and we had so much of his bountiful harvest last year we stopped eating tomatoes for a month. I expect his harvest to be just a plentiful and the tomatoes to come just as generously as last year.

I like how this has worked out to be such a family event with Megan picking the seeds, Eugene helping with the labor and my daughters helping to plant.


I even had help from my little nephew Joel in remembering where all the markers were supposed to go since he at some point pulled up each one of them. Good times with you, I'll miss you crazy man.