What Have I Been Doing? Part 1

I have a hard time jumping back into the blog world after a lapse. I keep thinking that I should blog, but then I think, "No, its been too long. I have too much to catch up on!" So, today I decided I should just jump back in. I decided to simply answer the question, "What have I been doing?"

Gardening--This is my first year to have a "real" garden. By that, I mean that someone actually came on a tractor and plowed a portion of my back yard, and I actually planted seeds and plants down in the ground. The past couple of years, I have done square foot gardening, but this year I decided to kick it up a notch and put some of these 3+ acres to use. It was lots of fun to work in the garden back in March and April when the temperatures were mild. I was a bit ambitious, and planted 36 tomatoes (it turns out that is a lot!), peppers, onions, green beans, potatoes, corn, zucchini, squash and cucumbers. I started thinking sustainable thoughts and feeling all farmerish.

Then, June came, and it turns out that Arkansas moved a bit closer to the Equator. "Farming" is not all that much fun when the heat index is hovering around 100! I pretended that the garden was not there for a week or two, and a lovely crop of grass moved in. Mark suddenly developed an interest in the garden when he realized there is heavy machines available. He started talking about buying a tiller, and I started thinking that I never wanted to say the word garden again. I made myself get back out there, and I ended up pretty pleased with our first year. We had lots of cucumbers, zucchini, squash, tomatoes and peppers. We had one "mess" of beans (I have no idea how three rows of beans only makes one "mess". There is some weird garden math at work!) Just when I was getting tired of figuring out what to do with squash and zucchini, they died, and I did not mourn their loss too much. I made tomato sauce and froze 12 quarts, which made me feel a bit like Ma Ingalls stocking up for the winter.

Even with the heat, I really enjoyed my first "real" gardening experience. Mark found a great deal on a tiller, so we are officially committed to trying again next year!