Gardeners block

I often wonder if my fellow gardeners also sometimes hit a period of not knowing what to write on their blogs.

Its not that nothing has been happening in the garden, it is either I'm too busy with work and family or feel what I've been doing is not of enough importance to tell the whole world about it.

I suspect there could also be more to it, I spent the first 4 years working feverishly - almost every spare moment I had was dedicated to the garden. Then as the vacant space became less and less and I had more and more trouble finding a spot for that new plant, I found myself spending less and less time in the garden and subsequently visiting garden centers or even buying seed less and less. After burning myself out trying to keep up with mowing, edging and gardening, I finally gave in and paid someone to mow and trim.

The summer was also so terribly hot and humid and that made matters even worse. Coupled with our record-breaking heat, we also had record-breaking drought. Last time I heard we were more than 6 inches below normal just since the beginning of October. It is well reflected on my water bill. It has more than doubled in the last couple of months.

To make matters worse, the heat lingered on and on and I felt even less motivated to start preparing the veggie patch. We normally start our "summer" veggies around mid October, but we were still having 90+F days and no rain, so I waited patiently. It finally started cooling down ever slightly by mid November.


I finally got out of my slumber and used the ugly trellis material I removed from the patio to create a "fence" around my new "out of sight and out of mind" veggie patch. I created three planting beds, fertilized with Milorganite.

Then I had problem getting water to it, bought some soaker hoses, laid them out and attached those quick connectors so I can take the garden hose and quickly just clip it in to water the entire veggie garden.

So its not ideal, but at least now I can turn on the kitchen timer, turn on the water and remember to turn it off.

Next step will be to install a poly pipe to take water all the way to the back (about 130 feet), attach it to a multiple manifold so I can still use the hose and/or spigot, attach a timer and forget about it.