Joycie the Gardener

Joycie decided she wanted to grow a garden over at her Gramma & Grampa's. My folks have a beautiful garden spot on the river flats. When I was a kid, we grew a huge garden there, and worked in it all summer long, then spent hours upon hours picking, digging, hauling, freezing and canning all the fruits, er... vegetables, of our labors. We grew a lot of what we ate throughout the year. It's incredible to me to think of that now, doing that for us would be drastically different from how we live and what we eat. Anyway, as a kid, I got so that I hated to weed the garden. But, one of the first things I did as an land-owning adult, when we bought our property as newly married 20-somethings, was to plant a garden. I kept a garden for quite a few years. It was significantly smaller than any my folks ever planted, and I generally lost half of it to deer, rabbits and other critters. We are so much in the woods on our place, that I eventually learned it just wasn't worth it. Not enough sun and too many thieves.

A few years back, my folks quit planting a garden. It's a helluva lot of work, from start to finish, and they decided they were just too tired of it. Gettin' old. They do some flower gardening and stuff, but no big vegetable gardens any more. Though, my Dad still keeps the garden spot tilled nicely. I'm not sure how it came to be that Joycie decided she wanted to grow a garden this summer, but I was all for it. I told her to just do a small one, but as gardens will do, it grew into a big ol' idea.

I helped her yesterday and today, and I think we planted close to an acre all told. Joyce has No Idea What She's Gotten Herself Into! She's gonna be weeding and weeding and weeding...! And weeding and weeding and weeding....

Her Dad helped her Big Time, too -- he spent several hours installing a 4-strand electric fence around it to keep the critters out (as much as possible).

It was really fun to plant it with her, and she enjoyed it, too. Here's the list of her plantings: tomatoes, bell peppers, jalepenos, zuchini, butternut squash, pumpkins, watermelons, green onions, spanish onions, leeks, carrots, parsnips, beets, lettuces, green beans, peas, potatoes, corn. Plus some flowers for picking, like zinnias, etc., and a row of sunflowers. I probably forgot some, too. It was a beautiful weekend for planting a nice, big garden!