“Hello Jeremy. I baked this homemade pie from rhubarb from the garden. Hope you like it.” “Thank you Grandma! This looks amazing! I’m sure we will love it.” Now. A teenager just got handed a wonderful yummy pie. My family isn’t around. And there is no way that this pie would ever be missed without the knowledge of my brother, sister, mom or dad. Right? I mean, what if the pie magically vanished? I mean, what would you do? You guessed it. I ate it.
It’s easy to forget the simple things. Growing up in a small town I got to love being fed fresh deserts, salads, and jelly’s made from home grown gardens. From the apple tree in the back yard. And the rhubarb patch by the alley. And in a day and age where a lot of people are trying to eat healthier and lose weight. What a great opportunity to talk about a garden.
What does that look like though? After all, some people have a apartment. Some people have 13 acres. Here are a few things I figured out trying to plant both.
Plan on setting aside a little time spread out over a week. If you spend small amount of time to weed and water all week, you won’t burn out as easy. I did burn out quickly and lost interest. And a giant weed patch later, I got the mower out instead of picking veggies.
Don’t plant more than you can manage. My first garden I started was very small and simple. Very easy to manage. Then the next year I went monster and lost it all to the weed monster. When doing a marathon of weeding every week isn’t something that I wanted to do.
This would also be a good time to talk about planning. If you don’t have a water spicket within a mile of the garden, odds are it’s a bad idea to plant there. This includes under tree’s. You know, like the trees that didn’t have leaves on them in the spring. The same tree that dropped a giant branch on your garden after that summer storm.
Did you know you can over plant a garden? You can! Just put the rows and the seeds too close together then poof. The whole garden sucks. You can’t distinguish between weeds and your plants. And nothing grows well.
Watering is very important. This is a slang way of saying “Don’t forget to turn the sprinkler off before you go to bed.” Two days later you have a lake that you, your neighbor, the mosquitoes, and the water company will have a chuckle about. Maybe a fish pond would be easier? Or better yet, if you go out and see the tumble weeds blowing across your cracked ground while a desert cactus is thriving, It may be time to “moisten” a bit.
Everyone dreams that their garden explodes with great healthy fruits and veggies that all their family and friends will want some. Then it happens. Then magically nobody in town wants to look at your tomatoes. I mean really everyone likes salsa right? And you could almost puke if you have to be force fed one more cucumber. This is where things get serious. You resort to having to wait until people are not home and drop off giant boxes of produce without a sign of where it came from. This way they can’t give it back.
Pests! Bugs galore. So you go buy some powder that does just as good as the powdered sugar it looks like. Sprays that seem to make you smell bad, but does nothing to force away the bugs. And you may never have seen a deer with in a hundred miles. Until your garden sprouts those amazing peppers you were looking forward to. Then ten of them appear in the middle of town to feast. And is that the neighbor grabbing your rhubarb at midnight?
It’s is very critical to get the right combination of fertilizer. The PH must be balanced. And nitrogen has to be added carefully. Then your son pees on the green beans. And yep. The local cats found out you have the worlds biggest litter box.
In all seriousness, gardens are a amazing way to relieve stress and fill your kitchen with awesome goodies. Just use a bit of planning. And you could have an amazing garden.
As for that pie. It was the perfect crime. Until Grandma asked my mom how the pie tasted.
Until next time.
Grandpa Wayne