As promised, I am providing an update on our family's first-ever vegetable garden effort. How shall I explain our current status...hmmm.
In mid-March, we tilled a patch behind my son and daughter-in-law's Parker County house before tilling our own. It was a family effort and I suggested they use some of their plentiful horse manure to fertilize. "Till it right into the soil," was the phrase I used, I believe.
The next afternoon we tilled our Johnson County garden, about twice the area as theirs. While examining our freshly turned-over dirt and without the equine fertilizer to add to our vegetable patch, I soon realized our soil was a little heavy on the clay content. Shouldn't be too big a deal, I thought to myself.
This past weekend, our daughter-in-law suggested we come see the progress in their garden. Of course, she had previously sent a few photos via telephone for us to enjoy.
"Look at our peppers, Gram!" my grandsons ran in front of me to the back of their yard where peppers, squash, tomatoes, okra, watermelon and lettuce were obviously thriving under the warm Texas sun. Small as the baby vegetables were, they still brought joy to her two boys who pray for their garden each night. 'OK,' I thought, 'they are bringing in heavy artillery now.'
"Dirty pool," I told their momma. We oohed and ahhed their vegetables. The garden looked great - and their TLC was evident.
"What's wrong with our garden?" my husband asked, his disappointment in our efforts was obvious.
"I think we need to pray, haul in some horse manure and mix a little sand into our clay," I answered while shaking my head.
Let's just say I think we need to replant some of our crop. In a 6-row, 20-foot long garden patch, — planted 5 weeks ago — we have exactly 2 summer squash plants, 3 zucchinis, 6 watermelon, 5 spinach and 8 bean plants. The two tomato plants are healthy and blooming as the various pepper plants are. The 20 sunflowers planted along side the fence have 18 sprouts popping their heads out of the soil.
Our failure to thrive veggies, it seems, were being watered 3-4 times each day, even on rainy days, by my enthusiastic nephew. "I think you loved it to death," my daughter-in-law said sweetly, while kicking our tail in the family veggie garden sweepstakes.