My Victory Garden
What went wrong!
Sadly I have no advice for you on growing perfect tomatoes or full-proof methods for getting your watermelons to grow the size of Michelin tires. Instead I’m going to tell you the one thing I learned when it comes to gardening, you must plan well. Having a vegetable garden, cutting garden or even a few ornamental flower beds requires planning. It’s not something you can do on the spur of the moment, I thought I understood this and was prepared for the weeding and watering, etc. but apparently I was not.
The previous owners of my home were a married couple with adult children and the husband worked for a landscape company so needless to say when my husband and I purchased our home the yard looked pretty spectacular. The first summer we were able to get by with the existing landscaping, cutting the grass on a regular basis was really all that was needed. The ornamental shrubs and various flowering plants were still young. The only thing I did that first year was put out two window boxes overflowing with fresh herbs.
The following spring we began to see that the yard needed some more maintenance other than just cutting the grass but I was 8 months pregnant and in no condition to be down on all fours pulling weeds and my husband I’m sorry to say is not the outdoorsy type. He who grew up in a beach town and spent his teen years in the inner city, I’m lucky he knows how to cut the grass. But feeling like I needed to do something I put out my herb boxes again and added additional containers of strawberries, cherry tomatoes, peppers, and Tomatillos.
This year, year three I fear I was a little overly ambitious. With a full-time job, two small children under the age of four and various extra curricular activities I did not plan my gardening activities very well. I didn’t take into account the constraints on my time. Spending time in the Garden meant less time for other things, things I wasn’t willing to sacrifice at the moment but I had fooled myself into thinking I could do it all.
The three small flower beds out in the front yard I weeded and filled with colorful pansies and violas but about two weeks later due to the buckets of rain we had the weeds were back and I didn’t have a moment available to re-weed them. Now nearly two months later the weeds are chocking my lovely pansies. The cutting garden that was planned for the side of the house never happened. My only success was once again my window boxes overflowing with mint, thyme, basil, rosemary, and chives and my little container strawberry plant that bore fruit more delicious than what I found at the Farmers Markets. My biggest disappointment however was indeed my vegetable garden. I tilled up a 12 x 10 space, made four well spaced rows and proceeded to plant my sweet peas, cantaloupe, bok choy, various heirloom tomatoes and hot peppers.
My grandfather whose victory garden is about 100 x 100 provides anything else I might want, zucchini, corn, squash, beans, cucumbers. I had fooled myself into thinking that if I turned the soil well enough and mixed in my compost that the weeds would not come. To look at it now you would never know that it was a tilled space, grass and weeds have both returned. My heirloom tomatoes and peppers are surviving, mainly because they are in cages but everything else are now buried somewhere between the clover and dandelions; Poor planning indeed. What do you do when you want a vegetable garden and you are short on time? I always thought Time Management was one of my strong points but if you take one look at my yard you might beg to differ. It’s too late to start from scratch, I’m going to take the weed whacker to my flower beds, fill them with mulch and leave them empty for the remainder of the summer. As for the vegetable garden I’ll probably do the same thing except of course for the tomatoes and peppers which have really proven themselves to be survivors.
Surely you other backyard gardeners out there have some sound advice out there about gardening with limited time so do share and before anyone says “Go ask your grandfather” I’ve got one word for you, retirement. I also welcome any other suggestions for the flower beds besides getting rid of everything, mulching them, and leaving them empty.
Next week: Starting a Community Farmers Market continues… I finally got that meeting scheduled with the Mayor, can I get him on board.
Heather Jones is a wife, mother, freelance food writer, and graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. She has worked for Gourmet Magazine, TV Personality Katie Brown, and the New York based Indian-fusion restaurant Tabla. Heather resides in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters. She is a strong supporter of the Sustainable Food Movement and believes that education is the key to making a difference.
Tags: bok choy, cantaloupe, Growing & Raising Food, growing fresh vegetables, heirloom tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, victory garden
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5 Comments
If you are growing organically, there will always be weeds. Some organic farmers lay black plastic over the ground, then plant seedlings through the plastic. Weeds have nowhere to go. But I don’t think plastic is compatible with organics. I just accept the fact that weeds will be there. However, dealing with them–or your garden–does not have to take an inordinate amount of time. I probably spend no more than 10 minutes per day in my garden, which consists of 9 vegetables beds, each 3 feet wide and 16 feet long. That’s a lot of vegetable bed. Those do need weeding. The weeds come in waves, according to the temperature and angle of the sun. There are cool weather weeds, and there are hot weather weeds. They germinate at different times. I plan on spending the better part of a day occasionally to pull weeds. Once these are gone, it’s usually weeks before I have to do serious weeding again. In your case, you could probably take care of your weeds in an hour. You just have to make it part of your plan. Other strategies help: don’t turn your soil. Just work the compost into the topmost layer. Mulch wherever possible. Pull or cut weeds before they go to seed, so they cannot replicate. Some weeds seeds remain viable in the soil for 50 years. There’s no way to eliminate them entirely.
Turning the soil can bring up all the old weed seeds that can lay dormant for decades in your soil. You didn’t say what the weeds are so we’ll pretend they are the easy ones. If your soil is well mulched most weeds are easy to pull and the mulch blocks the sunlight the weed seeds need for germination.
If your weeds are a grass that spreads by rhizomes, that’s another issue. You will need to get it out of there or it will keep coming back from the tiniest little piece.
If you can schedule outdoor playtime in the cooler mornings a few days a week, the kids might join you in looking for bugs and picking veggies. My kids loved to be outside and I would work in the garden while they played. It sounds like you need a plan that includes the kids and the garden. Plant easy cutting flowers like zinnias that also attact butterflies to thrill the kids.
There is a cool book called Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots that has loads of ideas for gardening with the kids. Have fun!
Raised beds, I agree, make life much easier. Weed cloth and mulch really help too. Also found that planting really heavily helps…no room for weeds! Still, you’ve got ‘maters and peppers…I am wishing for some NJ hot sun right about now.
I also found that at the end of the summer you can clean up on perennials at sales, they won’t be much of anything this year, but they’ll big big, you can usually divide many into 3 or 4 smaller plants, and presto, next spring and summer, instant gratification and a head start on the weeds.
Raised beds require a money and time commitment at the outset, but I’ve found that they are e-a-s-y to maintain during the season. Mine require very little weeding and because I keep them filled with compost and loomy soil, the weeds are easy to pull when they do show up.
Hope you enjoy your peppers and tomatoes! Those alone are worth the work of establishing your garden. :>
I find adding mulch as soon as things are up and about 4 inches high helps with the weeds.The years that I have been extra busy I try and go out every other day and check for weeds.Or I pick one bed a day to weed.But really mulching is the clue to no weeds.