Althought, I'm very late in starting this blog, I will be attempting to make a record of the garden that Mary and I are cultivating this year. We regretfully neglected to take any pictures in the beginning. This is something I intend to remedy in the future.

The seed (pun intended) for this garden was planted a couple of years ago, when exercising in Stansbury Park, I saw that people had garden plots there. Since the back yard in my house is completely cemented in, I've never had an opportunity to have a vegetable garden in the backyard. So I wanted to see if I could get one of those plots to plant some tomatoes instead of buying them all the time from the Farmers Market. After calling the Baltimore County Department of Parks and Recreation, I was given the number for the Eastfield Recreational Council, which in turn gave me another number to call. Finally I reached someone who could help me. Since I was a newcomer, I had to wait to see if anyone surrendered their lot. I was lucky enough that someone did and I was assigned Lot 91 and I paid my $12.

Well, after I got this lot, someone said something about the rabbits eating up all the plants of someone that had in a lot there. So off to Lowes I go and buy a ton of fencing. Then I realize I need someone to help me put the fence up. I asked a friend of mine if her son could help me. Well, every time we set a date to set the fence up, it rained! As it would happen, I mentioned this to my friend Mary. Mary thought having a garden would be a great idea, so I got a partner and a helper. Wonderful!!!!! We decided against the fencing and went off to Ogos to get flags to go around the perimeter of the 19 X 19 lot. So we now have the most colorful lot in the whole park.

Our next challenge would be to get the ground tilled, since the county waited so long to let us use the lots after they had plowed it. Off we go to HomeDepot to see if we can rent a tiller small enough for us to handle. So we had plans to rent a tiller, until Mary saw someone tilling and was concerned that it would be too much for two old women to attempt. So I decided to see if I could find someone that would till the lot for us. It so happened that I went to the lot that evening and there was a wonderful young man there tilling his lot. I asked him if I could pay him to till my lot too. He was kind enough to say that he would do it for us for nothing. I don't know how we would have gotten it done if it hadn't been for him. I told Mary not to worry about the tilling because I already did it. I let her think that I had tilled the lot by myself for a while but I finally 'fessed up.

After many trips to various garden stores, Walmart, and other assorted places, we got our plants and started planting. After we planted our plants, we laid newspaper on the ground and put hay on top of that to keep the weeds down. We've repeated this several times. Right now we have 11 tomato plants, 6 pepper plants, 3 eggplants, 2 cucumber plants, an arugula plant, 3 cantalope plants, 3 zuchinni plants, about 6 corn plants, 2 cabbage plants, and a watermelon plant. We also have about 6 yellow squash plants due to a miscommunication between Mary and I. Mary bought some yellow squash and I didn't realize it, so I bought some too. So I hope our family and friends like yellow squash. We also have a cilantro plant, a parsley plant and several basil and marigold plants in our garden. Our attempts to grow spaghetti squash from seed did not succeed. We also lost a watermelon plant. Other than those two problems, all seems to be doing well, despite the rains and more rains that we have been experiencing. We actually have some tomatoes on the vine, blooms on the squash, cucumbers, cantalopes, and eggplants. We're happy with the way things are progressing.

All that remains for us to do, is to plant a single cucumber plant, some carrot seeds and some green bean seeds. Since we haven't had too much luck with seeds, I'm not too optimistic about these. We are learning as we go along, so who knows we may have enough carrots to feed an army of Bugs Bunnies. We need to continue to weed and fight off the insects. Mary and I have armed ourselves with Sevin and soapy water to fight this pests and we are pulling weeds all the time. The paper/straw helps a good bit, but you still have weeds.

Hopefully, we will have a bountiful harvest later this year. I will looking to purchase little life jackets for our plants if the rains continue. I will take some pictures from time to time and report our progress as time goes on.