I first got into gardening at a very young age, about 5 years old. My Grandmother had a very large garden on the side of her house back in Pennsylvania. I use to go out with a cart and pick the vegetables for her. Also she had the best grapes. Huge juicy concord grapes that she grew on the side of her garage. She use to make jelly and jam with them.
You'd think that all the years of gardening that I'd be an expert by now. But I'm always learning new things. I'm into companion planting and doing everything possible organic.
I don't like killing bugs or spraying chemicals. I'd rather let the natural predators do that. But sometimes you have to take bugs and squish them if there are to many for the predatory bugs to handle. It's either them or the food.
I have in my yard, birds, a squirrel and a chipmunk. I put out food for them. I'm also growing flowers for the butterflies and companion plants for the caterpillars to eat. I'm hoping this year that I can attract hummingbirds to the garden.
The weather this year was not being very co-operative trying to get the garden started. In April, we started getting nice weather, then we had a snowstorm, which didn't help the tulips that were starting to bud. The daffodils did okay though. I went out and covered them the best I could with grass and leaves and cardboard boxes just so they wouldn't freeze.
We finally were able to dig out the veggie garden a few weeks ago. We have a 12 ft by 12 ft garden, that my husband had constructed. I had to go back to Home Depot for more dirt to fill up the beds along with compost and mix all that in. I started the seeds in a starter kit and when they started to get bigger to get transplanted into the garden, it rained for days. I didn't think I'd ever get them in the ground! The weather then turned from cool and rainy to hot and windy. Now it was getting to the end of May and I had some plants in the ground, corn, peas, carrots, radishes, onions, cucumber, zucchini, cantelope, lettuce (that didn't make it because of the hot and windy conditions). I still had green beans to plant, my hot peppers, tomatoes and green peppers.
So the weekend of Memorial Day I got the rest of them in the ground. I also planted herbs to go in with the vegetables. I also planted marigolds in the garden along with nasterium. They are suppose to help detract unwanted bugs.
My one daughter doesn't like to start things by seeds. She would rather just go buy a plant and put it in the ground. But I think there is something about getting your hands dirty and working the soil, getting all the weeds out and whenever I found grubs I would throw them to the robin, who seemed to follow me all around the garden. Yes, gardening is hard work if you do it like I do. Digging the soil with a shovel and turning it over and not with a tiller. Then hoeing to get all the hard dirt softer. The top soil that I bought, which was cheap, was hard as a rock. I have to go out now and then and break up the dirt. I bought Miracle-Gro Perilite to mix in with the soil around the plants and Jobe spike sticks and stuck them in the ground. The plants are perking up!
Now it's up to Mother Nature and me to get the best crops possible.
Happy Gardening!