Garden History Chapter Two

My Garden Journal-Chapter Two

Well, the family grew. So we had to move out of our little house with the little garden. We moved to a wonderful two story, eight sided house, it appeared round, outside of the city. It came with a 4.5 acre chunk of land. A functioning, heated, Green House. Grapes vines and about 15 rows, each, of Boxwood and Pyracantha bushes plus a riding mower/tractor with attachments. What fun learning to use the plow and cultivators. The bad news came after I checked with our agricultural department and found out I couldn’t sell the bushes without having proper testing done on the soil. But I could sell anything I grew in the Green House because I would be mixing clean potting soils. Joy, joy. In my part-time, I could grow plants then, eventually, I could earn money to pay for the propane gas I needed to keep the green house warm.

We soon found out that we had no talent with the attachments on the mower/mini tractor! Although, we did manage to get all the bushes dug up. The ground was clay and hard as a rock. Very hard to work by hand. This hugh plot of holes (about an eighth of an acre) became my year round vegetable garden. I could freeze ‘em, can ‘em and feed the family year round! But it was like hard labor until my mother and her hubby showed up one day and gifted me with the tool I had been talking and reading about for so long. My Troybilt Horse. What a dream! Vegetable gardening became an instant success after we put a dump truck of sand in the holes.
I grew so many plants in my green house, started many sets for the garden and even grew tomatoes and peppers in the winter.

The pets, a horse, a pony, goat, duck, rabbit, two or three dogs, cats and a couple dozen chickens all provided fertilizer for the garden, lol. Of course, sometimes it was hard keeping all those critters out of the garden, I even caught my dogs eating the melons in the summer!! But all good things come to an end and we had to move. Next installment of the saga in Chapter Three. The Blackwater years and the Troybilt never leaves my side.