We have had a vegetable garden before. We've had several. They've been small but relatively productive. I've always bought nursery plants. This year we decided to learn some self sufficiency and built 5 raised beds and started many of our plants from seed. At first this was a tremendously successful event. I loved watching my little seeds come up, all lined up on the bookshelf in front of our windows in the livingroom. It was so satisfying and beautiful. May first I planted my garden. I felt such a tremendous sense of pride looking over all my little baby plantlets and freshly turned soil. Several days later it HAILED!!!! Nearly everything with the exception of my cucumbers wich were seeds and my peas wich are tremendously resilient little buggers were smashed and frozen. My poor beautiful little tomatos, spinach.,..gorgeous little peppers....all decimated in about 60 seconds. I grieved and waited to see if anything survived and came back. Some came back. Most didn't. So, I started a few new starts inside and they're thriving. Problem is, I can grow them but I don't know if they will have enough time to produce... So, I have three choices.
first choice: buy some starter plants so that I can have a garden this year
second choice: keep growing from seed and see where it goes
third choice: buy some starts and keep growing from seed and see if they end up in the same place or not.
I think I'm going to go with choice three. I think I just need to experience the whole process for myself...even if it fails.
So right now I have about 9 pea plants, 1 spinach, 1 carrot, 8 or 9 cucumbers, 3-4 teenie tiny little tomato plants, 1 cilantro, some dill......... Let's see how they do?? Can they help supplement the food for a family of 3? We'll see....
By the way. Yesterday I had about 20 cucumbers (1/2 pickeling, 1/2 eating) and today it HAILED AGAIN! TWICE!!!!! about 1/2 of my little cucumbers got totally smashed and a few others just have some significant dings.
It doesn't usually hail this time of year in our part of Oregon.
What is up with the hail?! If it doesn't hail again, it sounds like you'll be able to make one heck of a veggie salad every day for about a month. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself (despite the destruction)!
ReplyDeleteouch, I hate hail. We had some too but evidently not as bad as you did! I would go with option 3, maybe next year you should build a little "green house" or canapy, easy to do with a clear plastic paint drop cloth and some pieces of wood,you just make a little tent over your raised beds to protect your veggies, some people will even use old milk containers and put them directly over their plants. Starting from seed at this time of year will not produce unless fall is warmer than normal. Good luck and I hope it doesn't hail again!!
ReplyDeleteIt might make you feel better to check out THIS hail storm in Oklahoma.http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/hail-storm-hits-oklahoma-19917666;_ylt=Ao2IKglchALbeDZCVnfe0dCz174F;_ylu=X3oDMTE3dTVmdmJ1BHBvcwMxBHNlYwNtb3N0LXBvcHVsYXIEc2xrA2hhaWxzdG9ybWhpdA--
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