Still Gardening without my SuperPowers!

You may have thought that I abandoned this blog but that is not the case. I have however, abandoned the idea that I am Superwoman and by doing so have given myself permission to focus on the big stuff right now and let all the small stuff wait. Unfortunately, compared to my Daughter's J.M.E. everything is small stuff.

That doesn't mean I've given up on gardening. No, I'm far too addicted for that! In fact, I've even expanded my gardens! Yes, it has taken me this long but I finally have my Vegetable gardens planted. Yeah, me!

But sadly, the grand plans and schematics that I had hoped for were scraped due to well...lack of time between Dr. appointments! After hours of back breaking work by my strongman hubby a plain lawn was transformed into 4 equal plots for veggies. Equal in size not in soil quality. The soil from one plot to another varied immensly from perfect topsoil to pure clay.

In the background you might recognize a rotatiller under that tarp. You may be thinking that my husband isn't the strong man I've discribed but I assure you he is! That Machine is the most contrary piece of gardening equipment to ever be invented! It ran well for about 2 minutes and then it would over heat. My hubby called it the "one row workhorse". You'd complete one row and then it would rest for 15 minutes before it would start again. So all in all, hubby did about 6 passes with the Machine and instead broke all that sod up with an old fashioned Maddox. What a Man! What a mighty fine man! All in all, it took him about 3 days of work. (Of course, with our schedules he did it over a two week time period.)

Then it was time to plant. At last!!! I was so proud to put in the peppers I had started from seed myself. They looked as good as the ones from the Backyard Farmer. While there I also purchased my onion sets. And as soon as I planted these prized possessions of mine I began to worry about a little creature I had seen in making his escape from my flower gardens just a few days before. Was I doing little more than setting up a free buffet for this cute vandal?

We've discussed fencing but we haven't gotten there yet...

After planting we carefully laid out our new watering system. We attached a 100 foot regular garden hose to our water spicket. At the other end we attached a four way splitter to which we attached four Seeper flat soaker hoses (by Gilmour Gardening Innovation from Wal-Mart for approx $13 per 75 foot hose). With one easy step I can now water all four gardens without wasting water, energy, or time (which is highly prized at this point). My new gardens are now ready. But will they grow?

The Rustic Garden Spring Blooms

I haven't been able to post as much as I like to so forgive me if this has too many photos and not enough text. It's been very busy around here and especially in the garden. As you know I had big plans for a raised veggie/kitchen/potager garden this year but sadly I think I'll have to compromise. With GardenGirl's recent health issues I have not been able to find time to bring in the necessary soil so it looks like I'll be rotatilling after all. Ssshhh, don't tell the relatives. So as we look prepare for that adventure I've been slowly making my way through the gardens and doing some light spring weeding. Here's a tiny peek of The Rustic Garden today, May 1st 2008.