Loving My Vegetable Garden

Everyone needs to have a Retirement Wish List when they retire.  Included in this Wish List might be new hobbies or endeavors.  Some will be loved and others may be deleted from the list.  Always an over-achiever, I am guilty of having quite an extensive Wish List.  One of my “loved” Wish List items is gardening.  

I grew up on a farm, my mother had a garden, and I remember helping her harvest her garden and watching her can and freeze vegetables from her garden.  I never had a garden - never felt like I had time to take care of it.  Most of the crop would need to be harvested about the same time I was going back to school in late summer.  I put "growing a garden" on my Retirement Wish List and it was one of the first things I did when I retired.  

Of the many good reasons to plant a vegetable garden (like reducing my carbon footprint or saving the bees), primarily I wanted to plant a garden in order to eat fresh vegetables and attempt to try out some great canning recipes.  It didn’t occur to me until after I started planting and working in my garden that there would be so many other positive health benefits such as exercise (cultivating, weeding, lifting, and planting), better immune system (Vitamin D from the sun) and improved mental health (stress reduction and released serotonin).  

Our year 1 garden was so enjoyable last summer that I planted another garden this year.  Last year, all of the plants came from seedlings and this year the garden started from seeds, except for the tomato plants.  (Seeds are sooo much cheaper, and yes they sprout right through that soil and grow just fine!)  Last year’s crop included tomatoes, green and red pepper, poblano and jalapeño peppers, cilantro, broccoli, cucumber, green beans and corn.  This year, I did not plant the poblanos and jalapeños (not much use for them) and cilantro (tricky to harvest) but I added peas, peppermint and zucchini.  

Don’t know how much canning I will be doing this year.  We are simply enjoying eating the vegetables fresh!  Grandson Dominic has even been enjoying fresh puréed vegetables from our garden.  Here are some tips for new gardeners:

• Put a fence around it.  I learned from last year - the bunnies and raccoons certainly enjoyed themselves.  This year, the only enemy has been deer.  
• Grow broccoli.  Each plant doesn’t produce a lot, but there’s nothing like fresh broccoli. 
• If you are growing squash, allow plenty of space.  It likes to spread out.  
• Keep those tomato plants off the ground.
• Corn - the deer love it.  Won’t be planting it next year.