Gardening, like a lot of things in life, can be tough!
One of the most important things that you need to have a good garden is time, and this is where @papa-pepper failed this year.
During the planting season, I was gone far too often for far too long working for me to be able to invest the time in my garden that I should have.
Many pepper seeds got started, and then shriveled up and died. Most of the seeds that I had wanted to plant never made it to the soil. To make matters worse, I did not control the weeds like I should have.
BACKGROUND
Over a year and a half ago, the @papa-pepper tribe moved to Arkansas from Wisconsin. Since the move, we have been staying in a guest house. Recently, we finally bought some land and now we are in the process of clearing a house site and drawling up some plans for building. Eventually, our goal is to move down on that land, raise some animals, have some gardens, and create a permaculture food forest. But… for now, life goes on.
Obviously we enjoy providing what we can for our family and are steadily moving towards a more and more self-sufficient lifestyle, which includes gardening. While we wait to move forward on our land, life goes on and people get hungry. Late last spring, a neighbor told us that we could use his old garden if we wanted to grow some food. “Great!” I thought, and asked where it was. When he pointed to it, is was pretty much a yard.
There may have been some remnants of a few old squash hills and some mounds that seeds had nce been planted in, but was covered in solid Bermuda Grass. Still excited about the opportunity, I bought some cattle panels and T-posts, and covered the area in mulch, adding some top soil from in the woods in the places that I was going to plant.
Last year, all of my hard work paid off. The garden looked amazing, I fought the Bermuda Grass back every time it popped up and I was winning that war, and a we harvested a lot of fresh produce for the family. All was well.
Except for losing control of one area that I let a neighbor boy grow some Pumpkins for his 4H project, the garden looked great. Please note that when I mention “losing control” I do not speak of sharing the area that I was gardening in, I am more than fine with that. I mean that his standard of keeping the weeds and Bermuda Grass out were not on the same level as mine.
Although some weeds creeping in from one of the corners, the garden looked great and I did a nice looking garden progress report a year ago when my garden was producing like crazy.
Even nine months ago when I did my "State of the Garden" report the place was still doing great and I was keeping things under control... Ahh, the good old days.
SAME GARDEN – DIFFERENT YEAR
This year, I knew that it was going to be our last using that space as a garden. I still had high hopes of using it to its fullest this year, but those hopes never fully manifested themselves in reality. You can view the disaster first hand in this video.
In case you are wondering who that little-pepper is with me in the video, it is "Buddy Pepper" our newest little one. He's a cute little guy and two months old already. Sometimes, he even smiles when I talk to him.
But, back to the "garden" as some would still be inclined to call it. The wild mess of random plants formerly known as my garden is alive and well... well, it's alive anyway and some things are growing.
Deep inside that thicket, there are still some edibles fighting for survival. They fall into two general categories. The first kind is the planted ones. These are represented by the plants that somehow grew from the very few seeds and seedlings that I actually planted in the garden area this spring.
The second kind of edible plants growing in "that wild, fenced in section of yard" are the volunteers. These wonderful producers have sprung up from the seeds of plants that produced on their own in those areas last year. Whether some ripe seeds made their way to the soil on their own or some overripe fruit fell to the earth, either way they have given new life to my garden in the form of volunteer garden plants.
THE PLANTED PLANTS
Yes, back during my "high hopes for this year's garden" period earlier this year, I actually got some seeds into the earth. If you've been around for a bit, you may remember my soil drills post from a while back featuring the Daikon Radishes like the one above that I planted, but I got a few other seeds in too.
Kale
The Kale did excellent and was doing great. We ate a few dishes of it, but did not make any "Kale Chips" yet. Even before we left to Texas those little white butterflies were hard at work beating us to eating it. I think that soon I will be pulling it up as hog feed, so at least it won't go to waste. I at least have the intentions of planting a fall crop of something it its place. We will see and time will tell.
Dipper Gourds
I finally got around to planting a few of the more "useful" gourds that I have been meaning to for years now. This plant is one of the six "Dipper Gourd" plants that I got in. I think it may be the only one that survived, but, thankfully it is hard at work producing. When the gourds fully form and dry, people cut them to turn them into "dippers" or ladles. Hopefully we can do that this year.
Birdhouse Gourds
The "Birdhouse Gourds" are another interesting gourd that can be very useful when dried. Just by cutting a hole in the front of the large bottom section and emptying the dried seeds and such out of the inside you can make a birdhouse that the birds will actually use. It can be a simple and fun project to make with children, and painting them is also an option. I only planted one hill of them, but they look like they are going to do amazing and we should wind up with a great harvest of them. I think we will have one for each of the @little-peppers and hopefully some to share with the neighbor children too.
Tomatoes
We did get a few volunteer Tomato plants as well, but at least five that I planted still exist, at least last I knew. Thankfully the ripe red fruit will stick out to the eye even when it is buried in a thick forest of green. Situations like this really make me look forward to starting fresh on my own land next year.
Popcorn
We first grew our own popcorn from seed last year. We really enjoyed making our own butter and popping our popcorn last year, but we did not eat it all.
We saved some of the seeds for planting, and even gave some away to others like @matthewtiii and his family. Back up in Wisconsin there was a saying about corn where the rule of thumb was "Knee high by the 4th of July!" It is so different growing it down here, since our popcorn plants were taller than me by the 4th of July! Now, they are already drying on the stalk and we will be harvesting them any day now.
Red Chinese Noodle Beans
These are my new favorite garden plant for many reasons and I even did the first ever Steemit Garden Seed Giveaway with some of my seeds from last year. Some steemians like @robrigo, @cryptoiskey, and @jed78 took advantage of my offer and got some seeds of their own for free from me. No matter how hard I fail at gardening in the future (and I certainly hope that I don't) I will always be planting some of these. The pest resistance is amazing, they do great in the heat, and the harvests are incredible. They are producing great right now and most likely will for months to come.
Cucumbers
Who doesn't love a fresh cucumber straight from the garden? Well, even if you don't, we do! This year, we are even growing a Cucumber plant. Yes, one. Don't ask... I'm not sure. Anyway, we are happy to have our plant and it does produce.
Last year we had harvests like that. Once, I went to process the harvest and found out that I had 282 Cucumbers to deal with. I think right now we have a few to deal with, but we are happy about them anyway.
We won't be putting up massive amounts of jars for the winter this year, but we will still be eating fresh and healthy, and getting a return on my limited investment.
Peppers
Thankfully, @papa-pepper did get a few peppers planted. If he hadn't, he'd kind of just be a papa, right? The ones above are one of the largest varieties that I grow, the "Big Jim." They can grow over a foot long and have been a tasty favorite of mine for years.
I've got a few Jalapenos growing in this garden too, but, honestly, that is about it. Some more fiery ones are already planted on the land, but up in this "garden" I've just got a few plants. In Wisconsin, often my garden would be about 75% pepper plants with a few other edibles mixed in. When you wind up with as many @little-peppers as I have, you eventually switch to trying to grow more "real food."
Hops
One of my brothers up in Wisconsin runs the High Hoppage webpage and sent down some hops rhizomes with @grandpa-pepper earlier this year. This year he sent me some Sterling and Golding varieties. I already had some Cascade and Chinook varieties that he had given me the previous year, so now I have quite a few kinds. The ones from last year are really taking off and producing. Since they are useful for more than just homebrew, we will have a few interesting things that we plan on using them for.
Propagated Fig Trees
Some of my propagated plants are still doing great too. Last year I began preparing a lot of food plants for out land. I still have to find them some permanent homes on our property, but to see them alive and well is a blessing. These little figs are growing on a tiny fig tree right now. Last year it was just part of a branch that I cut off of another tree. Amazing! To learn more about the process, you can check out my Guide to Plant Propagation.
With just a little know-how, time, and skill, you can really get a lot of new plants for free. Since many food bearing plants propagate easily, and since we need to eat food, propagating plants as a hobby just makes sense to me.
THE VOLUNTEER PLANTS
To fill in all the blanks that I left in my lame attempt at planting a garden, many volunteer garden plants sprung up to help box the weeds out. Personally, I think that any plant that will volunteer to come back the next year is a great plant to have. Here are a few of the ones this year.
Passionfruit
Yeah, this vine is a perennial anyway, and as @mericanhomestead will testify to, it is probably not a good idea to plant them in your garden. Some would even call them invasive. Pretty much, once they get established (which may just mean planted) they will start popping up everywhere.
I knew that this would only be a temporary garden for me, so I was not too concerned with their invasive nature. I was mostly just seeing if I could propagate them successfully. Thankfully, it worked. The ones that grew back this year were grown from cuttings last year.
They have done very well and are producing a great crop this year, so we are happy about that. Since they came up everywhere on their own, I'm categorizing them as a volunteer.
Tomatillos
These guys have a great reputation for producing volunteers. Any fruit that is allowed to fall to the earth has a huge potential of coming back as a bunch of seedlings the next year. Up in Wisconsin, I would get a lot of volunteer Tomatillos and we are still being blessed with them down here.
Since Tomatillos are one of the main ingredients in Salsa Verde, they are a staple crop for us. I am so glad to have some growing, even though I did not plant any this year. I like to use them in my Green Ghost Salsa as pictured above, which features both the Tomatillo and the Ghost Pepper.
Green Beans
The Japanese Beetles like to eat these plants a whole lot more that the Chinese Noodle Beans, so we highly prefer the Noodle Beans as a crop, but if some Pole Green Beans want to volunteer to feed my family, then we will let them. They are currently fighting it out with the Passionfruit as they both produce right now.
Ground Cherries
Much like the Tomatillos, the Ground Cherries are also very good at coming back year after year on their own, even though they are not a perennial. They tropical-tasting little paper-husked garden treats are a real pleasure to grow and eat, and when they reseed themselves, it makes the whole seed-saving process a lot easier.
If you are unfamiliar with this plant, you can check out my Garden Plant Spotlight on it.
Amaranth
Amaranth is one of those grains that is not as well known to some people because it is not wheat. Once a certain grain becomes popular and commercialized, like wheat and corn have, many others take a back seat, and Amaranth is one of those. We have been experimenting with growing some of our own grains for years now, and we have a few beautiful Amaranth volunteers growing this year. The leaves are also very tasty, so they are a great dual-purpose plant, since you can at more thatn just one part of them.
Kiwanos
If you saw anything about my spontaneous tracking down of @jed78 to put an end to his nine month steemit absence, then you may have already heard that these can take over a greenhouse. The Kiwano is also known as the African Horned Melon, and it looks like this when ripe.
It is a peculiar food to say the least, but we really like them and grew them last year, hence the volunteers this year. In the first photo here, they are mixed in with the Hops and Birdhouse Gourds, but they have volunteered and are hard at work growing. I did a Garden Plant Spotlight on the Kiwano too if you want to learn more.
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
With gardening, homesteading, parenting, or so many other things in life, often our presence is necessary to truly have something work out or reach its full potential. Sure, a little effort may be able to get you a little return on your investment, and sometimes blessings just "volunteer" to appear in your life, but still, hard work and dedication are often necessary.
Whether it is gardening, life in general, or trying to make things work out for you on steemit, a half-hearted attempt will often produce a sub-par result. I hope to never have another garden that looks like this, but even more so, I don't want a marriage or a family that looks like this. I plan on being there and investing in my wife and children, and hopefully in the garden too. How about you?
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-a-gardener-but-not-a-master
Until next time…
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