Growing Food

Since David is an avid gardener and I love to eat vegetables, having a vegetable garden would seem like a pretty logical step for us.  In fact, it seemed so logical that we tried to do it a few years ago.  David prepared a spot in the back yard, I checked out tons of books from the library, read through them, selected the "square foot gardening" method, sectioned off the spot David had prepared into square feet, and diligently planted a vegetable in each square, with marigolds in some squares to ward off hungry critters.  The marigolds, however, didn't qute do their job, and most of our veggies had been eaten by a family of groundhogs before the seeds even sprouted.  The tomato plants did come up, but each time a tomato started to grow, one of the groundhogs got to it before it was ripe enough for us.  Once I watched a groundhog pick a tomato from the plant, carry it over to the kitchen window (to make absolutely certain that I could see him), ate half of it, and tossed the rest away.  No tomatoes for us.  We did manage to get enough fingerling potatoes for one meal, but that was the total produce of our vegetable garden. 

Since then, we haven't been eager to put anything edible in our back yard.  Houseplants, however, are a different story, and David purchased a Meyer lemon tree a couple of years ago to grow inside.  When the tree arrived (in the mail), it was just a baby, and David nursed it under a grow light for what seemed like an eternity.  Actually, I think in terms of plant life, it was an eternity.  My mom acquired the same tree at the same time, and it seemed like hers started bearing fruit pretty quickly, while we were seeing only leaves.  Mom even started bringing lemons with her when she visited, so we had a preview of what ours would taste like when (if) the tree finally did start producing lemons.  Then, last summer, we got a few flowers and, over the course of the past year, those flowers turned into lemons.  It was a very slow process.  When the weather turned nice a few weeks ago, David put the tree outside, though he is careful to bring it in when we get a frost warning (yes, we are still getting those, even though it is the end of May).  Yesterday, one of the three now-yellow lemons fell from the tree.  David brought it in and squeezed it over the walleye I had made for dinner, and it was just perfect.  We finally got to eat something that grew at our house!  There are still two lemons on the tree, and maybe it will grow three more in the next two years.

Comments

[Keengardener]

When you plan on setting up a vegetable garden it is really important that you plan ahead. If you have problems with pests eating your vegatables before you then a greenhouse is a great option. Alot more people are taking up gardening as a hobby and it can make for a very rewarding past time.