Gardening 101

Spring is here, and with that comes another year of attempting to grow food for ourselves. We've gotten pretty good at feeding the local four-footed population which includes squirrels, possums, raccoons, rabbits, and probably some deer. I think they probably put a radar out announcing that we're trying it again. Somehow they managed to stay away from our tomatoes, broccoli, and asparagus last year, but they trampled the pitiful row of corn we planted.

Miss Daisy has taken over the garden plans this year. She's color-coded an entire plan on graph paper, the ground has been tilled, seeds bought, some planted indoors, and some planted outdoors. It's a small little plot, so we are trying a mix of wide rows, climbing things, square foot gardening, and (hopefully) a raised strawberry bed.

We still have other gardeny chores that need attending like cutting out the small maple tree that "we can get rid of later." It's providing a bit too much shade ten years later. *smile* Let's see...set up the poles for the pole beans, build a trellis for the climbing cucumbers, build the raised bed. Mr. Tech has decided he will write a follow up to the Joy of Gardening. Perhaps you can imagine the title.

So why perservere? We happen to think gardening skills are rather important to learn. You just never know when we all might be hunters and gatherers again, although we have no desire to pick up the hunting skills at this point in time. Even our fishing pole (note the singular) is in questionable condition. Perhaps we can work on that this summer, too. Or perhaps we can trade for our fabulous vegetables. Perhaps this year we won't have any baby squirrels trapped in the netting over the tomatoes (with an imaginary caption that said "Busted."). I suppose we should have had squirrel stew, but we freed him instead.

Until next time...