Last year we planted tomatoes and peppers. The tomatoes didn't do any good at all. The peppers took forever, and I ended up not even doing anything with the last batch I picked.
This time, we decided to try gardening in different areas of the backyard and letting the regular garden rest or recover or whatever.
So this time the tomato/pepper garden is up in the yard closer to the house, next to the clothesline.
It's on a slope, which may help with drainage, if drainage has been a problem? and still gets plenty of daily sun. I don't believe it's ever been gardened in this area before, or at least not for many, many years, so maybe the soil has the vitamins and nutrients growing gardens need.
A few years ago we raised some very nice tomatoes near this area, but I'm not sure if it was the ground, or just because conditions were favorable. A few years ago, conditions were favorable for the big garden down back, and then something apparently went wrong, so maybe it won't be any better in the new area, either.
I really need to work on a Garden Journal and see if I can figure anything out, since my memory is so bad.
Anyway, you may remember from over the past couple of months my Black Russian, Rutgers, Beefsteak, and Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, and Datil Peppers.
J mowed out the area we decided on, then tilled up 5 rows.
Yes there's still grass between the rows. He may till it later, or I'll keep it cut with the push mower. Or something.
Row of (2) Cherokee Purple, and (5) Beefsteak tomatoes
Sometimes I forget, or I guess it'd be more like I don't realize how much space we actually have in the yard. Even with this rather large garden area, there's plenty of room between it and the back porch, and there's still a fairly wide trail to the gazebo/pool (or, pond as is it now), between the garden and clothesline.
Contrary to how it looks, J didn't do all the work on the garden by himself, lol. I did some push-mowing, and also helped with planting, until I got injured.
The reason I said I didn't think this area had been gardened before is because of the amount of broken glass we dug up.
I'm not an expert on the history of garbage disposal, but from what I understand, back around the supposed age of this place (1930's-40's), there wasn't much garbage, very little waste. Most items came in glass, tin, and paper/cardboard containers. The paper/cardboard would have been burned, and the glass and tin containers re-used. Apparently when the glass (and glass/ceramic/china dishes) broke, they were buried out in the yard. Maybe the tin containers, too, which may have rusted away by this point? At any rate, we have found tons of broken glass, ceramic, pottery, and/or china pieces all over the yard every since we've lived here.
Yesterday we dug up a whole pile of it. J was disappointed, he'd thought for sure he'd found someone's Mason Jar buried bank(s), lol.
Anyway, I wasn't being as careful as I should have been, and dug into the dirt to scoop out a hole for planting, and a thick piece of broken glass caught my finger and sliced it open.
It started bleeding, a lot, and I started whining and moaning because I don't like blood, and especially not my own.
After that my hole digging time was over. Because I had an injury, with a bandaid on it, I couldn't get it dirty, see. Not that I was terrified it might happen again or anything.
Other gardening Update:
It's been 6 days since we planted the corn in the Three Sisters Mounds, and so far, no corn.
It rained/was overcast for about three days after that, so I'm not sure if that has delayed them or not. A FB friend posted that they'd had corn sprouting 3 days after planting theirs, but that wasn't at the same time as we planted ours.
I can't decide whether to wait a little longer, or go ahead and re-plant.
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