Vitafamiliae

My landscaping needs are pretty basic.  I want a bed of lilies.  Always.  Some herbs for the kitchen.  I wouldn’t mind some cucumbers, but only if I’m not solely responsible for all the gardening.  Fortunately, Andrew loves outside work and is always fiddling with the yard in some way.  So I guess when I showed him a picture in a magazine of a backyard fountain, he was happy to have a project that I would be excited about.

He started digging the hole a few weeks ago, but then several weeks of rain reduced the hole to a mud pit for my Little Piggies.  When we finally had a dry weekend, Andrew worked hard to get the hole more laundry-friendly.

Adam was terribly helpful, as you can see.  We did have Sam and Ian help out by dragging the dirt off in buckets.

This wasn’t fun for very long, but we encouraged them to be diligent and they bore up well.

Andrew could certainly have done it faster on his own, but when they were finished, they had a whole new pile of dirt/mud to play in.

Ellen was the cheerleader from her perch on the trampoline.

Once the hole was dug, Andrew dug a deeper, smaller circle in the middle for the pump.

Then he lined the deeper pit to make it hold water.

Ellen was as helpful as ever, of course.

And the boys used the left-over liner to make some Zorro capes so they could swoop around the yard.

Next came bags upon bags of gravel.  It didn’t seem like a big hole at first.  Sixty-five bags of gravel later, we’d changed our minds.  Here’s what the van looked like after Andrew’s FIRST trip to the rock store.  This was with only thirty bags of gravel and some river stone in it.

Andrew was pretty close to having his nose in the air there, don’t you think?  We certainly exceeded our budget on this project, but once we had the hole dug, there wasn’t any turning back.  Once he had the gravel in the hole, Andrew had to wash it so the water wouldn’t be too dirty to play in.  He wet the rock and then vacuumed up the excess with a shop-vac.  It took awhile, but the gravel was nice and shiny.  And now that I’ve seen Ellen try to drink the water on more than one occasion, I’m awfully glad he took the time.

It took several trips to the store to get the right amount of gravel so that it was level with the ground.  Once we had it level, Andrew installed the pump.  The pump shoots the water up out of the rocks and then recycles the water as it trickles back down through the rocks.  With the exception of what evaporates or gets tossed by the kids, we shouldn’t have to refill it much.

Then we covered the pump and leveled the gravel again.  Next came loads and loads of river rock.  We transferred them from the van to the backyard in the dark after the kids went to bed.  We never cease to find ways to entertain our neighbors (or annoy them).

We still have some work to do, the actual fountain isn’t quite center, but Andrew swears it’s easily fixable.  And I’m glad.  Because the lack of symmetry makes me twitch.  In the meantime, the kids L.O.V.E. this thing.  Yes, I’m still doing extra laundry because of all the wet clothes, but it is literally hours of entertainment.  From the living room, I can hear the soothing sounds of water running and watch my children laugh and splash and play.

My one complaint is the plumber’s crack I am forced to endure when the bottoms of the boys’ pants get wet and heavy.

All of this to say, my husband rocks. Pun oh-so-very-much intended.

Well, people, I did it again. Say it with me: Yaaaaard Work. And by I, I mean we, of course. Actually, it was much more Andrew and much less me. But I am pleased to say that I did offer help beyond sitting in the shade and cheering. (Which I do quite well, by the way.)

I showed you pictures, several weeks ago, of Andrew working on a brick border for a new and expanded front bed. Once that was complete, we needed to get the soil ready for planting. We live on clay. Mixed in with gravel. And construction garbage. So it’s not like Andrew could just grab a trowel and dig in. He took a hack or two at the “dirt” with a pick axe and then grabbed the keys and headed off to rent a rototiller.

He drove back from the home improvement store with a commercial grade rototiller in the back of the minivan and the back hatch completely open. Makin’ memories, people. That’s what we do here.

It took him about five and a half hours all told just to get the soil broken up. For a fairly small stretch of “dirt.” He drew quite a crowd from the neighborhood. Every now and then he’d stop to pick up a brick that was amid the gravel and clay. The boys helped him pick the big rocks from the “soil.”

Sam has long since perfected the art of looking busy while actually doing very little. I managed to capture him picking up the ONE rock he grabbed the whole day. We all have our roles to play.

The neighbors mocked Andrew for wearing long sleeves in our Alabama heat, but he was trying to avoid sunburn. Of course, a hat would have helped, too. That occurred to us about five minutes before he finished the job.

Once Andrew had wrestled the rototiller over the “dirt” that was in the bed already, we mixed in some good compost so that we could, you know, grow stuff.

Nothing like seeing my man behind a rototiller to make my heart go pitter-patter.

Here’s the “dirt” once it was tilled but before we added the compost. (Oh, alright, I mean before ANDREW added the compost.)

And here it is 1500 pounds of compost later.

Once we had the soil prepped and the kids down for a nap, I really did get my hands dirty. We planted a herb garden on one side of the bed and filled it with lavender, rosemary, basil, echinacea, sage, thyme, oregano, mint, dill, and lambs’ ear. The other side of the bed will eventually hold lilies, but for now, we popped a bunch of salvia, zinnias, and blue creeper in to make it look pretty.

Once we had everything planted (yes, I really mean we this time), Andrew had to mulch the whole bed. This includes the part that we didn’t “upgrade.” He shoveled the mulch into the bed and I raked it in place. I know, picture preggers me, barefoot, wearing a straw hat and sunglasses, pushing a rake around in the mulch. Hilarious. We used nearly 3 yards worth of mulch and ran out before we finished. All told, the project took us just under twenty-four hours to complete, from Friday evening to late Saturday afternoon.

I don’t have a good before shot, but trust me, the after is a big switch.

We had dinner plans for the evening with church friends. We sat in a sun-drenched stupor and stared through most of the meal. We weren’t the most exciting couple, for sure. But we did good solid work and we’re proud of our accomplishment. And by we, I mean, well, we. Now I just have to keep it watered and all alive and stuff…

If you have been tracking our family projects, you might remember the gardening project we undertook this year. As summer is fading into fall, we wanted to look back on our gardening experiment and share some of the lessons we learned from our experience.

The Method
At the beginning of the year we chose to use the Square Foot Gardening method espoused by Mel Bartholomew. The advantages are good soil, few weeds, small size, and support for multiple plant types. Many levels of difficulty exist for square foot gardening, but we chose one of the most basic for our first year, attempting to maximize our chances of success. We planted tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, celery, broccoli, black-eyed peas, green beans, cucumbers, and many different kinds of flowers.

The Results
I believe we have eaten some of almost every type vegetable or fruit planted. They all produced, but with varying degrees of success. The green-beans, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, and spinach performed well. The peas, celery, and cucumbers did ok, but not great, and the broccoli was a complete failure. Pesky cabbage worms destroyed the broccoli no matter how many of them we killed.

The garden produced as advertised with few weeds, very little upkeep, and great plant growth. Keep in mind that we started most everything from seed!

Lessons Learned

Start small. I am glad we did not try to tackle more space or higher difficulty models like continuous harvest or seed starting indoors the first year.

Choose “how” and “why”. Square foot gardening fit our time and energy requirements. A small traditional garden with all the weeding involved might not have. And this was an experiment, not meant to feed all of our family’s needs, so we planted accordingly.

More Space. Plants need more room than we thought. The tomatoes and the cucumbers grew quickly, and achieved impressive size. Unfortunately, they shaded nearby plants which needed the sun. The beans suffered from this lack of light, but lesson learned. Next year, more space.

Critical mass. Be sure to plant enough to harvest for a meal. The black-eyed beans did not produce enough of a crop at a time to give us a helping for a meal.

Watch and listen. Some crops exceeded our expectations. Others did not. Guess which ones we are going to repeat next year? Yep. The ones that did well. Tomatoes, green-beans, cucumbers, lettuce, and spinach were all winners. Black-eyed peas, celery, and broccoli were losers. The losers will not be planted or we will find another variety. And I imagine we will add a few more unknowns to next year’s crop so we can find a few more winners.

Flowers. The flowers kept the garden cheerful, even when things were not in bloom. Just make sure you know how tall the flowers will really get. We had some six footers that pretty much shaded the other flowers. They were beautiful and the butterflies loved them, but I could have used some better variety.

Finally, a few things they don’t tell you in the gardening books:

Hand a child a seed, he’ll plant it… somewhere. Andrew found a random sprout of moonflower in a half empty pot of dirt. Sam planted the “magic seed.”

Nobody loves your garden like you do. Leaving it in the hands of others can be fatal.

Working in the garden seems to contribute to the intestinal workings of little boys. Be prepared for the “gardening stench” and I don’t mean fertilizer.

Nothing builds the bond between father and son like “helping” water the garden every morning. Every child sho

Do you remember in Genesis 1:28 where God tells Adam and Eve to fill the earth and subdue it? When we returned from vacation, I found out why God told these first two people to subdue the earth. If you don’t, the grass, weeds, vines, etc, will take over your house and move in!

When we returned from vacation, I groaned when we pulled up the driveway. While we were on vacation enjoying sand, sun, and family, every plant back home had a mission to grow as big as possible in all the wrong places. What’s more, they could devote all day and night to this horrible mission impossible. I’ll give it to them: they succeeded beyond my imagination.

I have flower beds of grass that were empty when we left. I have weeds where grass was growing not a week ago. Our grass is tall enough to make hay, and the weeds are even taller.

So this evening after the kids were safely (and quietly) in bed, I set to work mowing the grass and starting to put things back in order. It was a good feeling, despite the stifling heat and the sweat soaking my clothes. Perhaps that sounds a bit sadistic to many of you, but the truth is that for every row or two that I mowed, I felt like I was taking some control back. There remains much grass to mow, many weeds to pull, and a few plants to nurse back to health, but the small dent feels good.

Dominion is hard, often sweaty, and sometimes dangerous, but I’m finding it is also fulfilling and necessary. God seems to not only give me the direction, but I must remember that he is also my creator. He knows how I am wired, and how I will best function. While I am hoping that taking dominion does not always require weeds, I am heartened that the God who made me is also the God who directs me and delights in my obedience. Even with weeds.

Blessings,
Andrew

We can at last say that we have harvested the “fruits of our labors.” Well, green beans aren’t fruit, but close enough. We’ve got quite a few green beans still on the vine, waiting to be picked. And so many cucumbers growing we can’t count. But I picked my first one yesterday. Now, anyone got any pickling recipes? Or good ways to can green beans?

For all of you who are keeping an eye on our garden, here’s your update. We’ve had a bunch of rain here (I’m talking ark-worthy) and the garden has grown like gang-busters. We’ve got tons of little bitty cucumbers behind the yellow blossoms on the plant. The cucumber plants are taller than the trellis now. We’ve got green beans almost ready to harvest in a week. And everything else seems to be doing well. Except… for the broccoli. The caterpillars got it. We’ve decided to admit defeat. At first, we thought we could pick them off and minimize the damage. But while we won a few battles, the caterpillars won the war. Which is a bummer, because I really wanted to see what broccoli looked like in the ground. Oh well. If all we lose is one vegetable, I’d say we’re still pretty successful. Truthfully, even if we harvest nothing, watching the boys help Daddy water the garden every morning was well worth every minute.