Changes at the WatRanch

So this weekend we decided once and for all to fence in the garden for several reasons. The two biggest reasons were the dog next door who, while very cute, likes to come and play in my lettuce bed, and to give the rabbits some protection from our own mutts. This was an all-hands-on-deck project instead of a Bill-hurry-up-and-do-it project. Which means I became very good friends with a commercial post hole digger and a drill.

I'm most excited about this pergola. I put it together all by myself and I can't wait to plant all kinds of lovely vining, flowering things at the bottom of it.

I also love that this is the gateway to the garden. It looks rough and messy now, but soon enough I hope this view is full of lush greens and vivid colors. This is the view from the inside looking towards the house.

The four quads are very clear in this shot with Quad 4 covered in grass in the immediate foreground, Quad 2 just above that, Quad 1 at 12 o'clock in rows, and Quad 3 recently turned over and rich brown to the left. The raised strawberry beds are also encompassed in the new perimeter as well as a large open area in front of the shed for Joe to stomp around in while I'm gardening.

To finish off the fence, we added garden wire to the existing split rail fence. I did all this myself, too. No doggies are welcome here.

Yes, the shed is STILL under construction, as are guest blog posts describing the progress. We're also planning a patio in front of the shed as an outdoor living/play space for the family. The work we've accomplished on the fence in one weekend has me very encouraged that we can make that happen soon, though there are still gutters to be installed on the house and a storm shelter to be built.

I can't help planning potential new beds, though. I'm thinking this will be a cutting flower bed. It's funny that by placing this boundary around the garden, we've created even MORE planting areas. The gate next to the future bed is for lawn mower access to and from the shed, and Bill put it together using a one of the sections of fence. After I hammered off all of the slats, of course. GRRRR.


Edit: Voting for the rabbits' names will stay open til the end of the week, I think. It's just starting to get interesting. Click here to cast your vote.

How it all began...

When we first moved to Oklahoma in May of 2008 and bought our one acre of land, we were eager to throw paint on our walls, coordinate new furniture, and start a garden.

Mother Nature decided that I should focus on growing other things, however, because I quickly found out I was pregnant with our first child.

I got little accomplished the first summer and fall in terms of gardening, thanks to my "delicate condition," aka "alien invasion." I did manage to remove the 3-foot-tall weeds growing wild in the back yard and plant some spring bulbs in the front beds. My husband spent nearly all of the summer building a traditional split-rail fence around the back half of our property, which would act as a deterrant for our 2 wandering mutts, and also as a nice complement to the rural vistas. It was hard work trying to dig into the hard, red clay, so he rented a mechanical post-hole digger.



Our vegetable garden would have to wait until this past spring when our little helper arrived. We got started with the planting the day before Easter Sunday, and in retrospect that was probably much too late for most of the things we tried to grow. Theoretically it would have been better to start planting around the first few weeks of February, but with our son Joe making his grand appearance on Feb. 13th, planting just wasn't on our minds at the time.




After learning our lesson about the hard clay, we decided to go with 2 raised beds, one 6'x12' and one 6'x8'. I think when I first imagined these beds, I thought they'd be crammed full of healthy veggies, from which I could make countless meals and freeze up several pounds of bumper crops to later make into baby food. I later learned that 1 six-foot row of peas produces about a half-cup of shelled peas. So barely one serving.



But we had to start somewhere, so we stapled chicken wire (to keep out burrowing pests...which we don't really have in OK) inside a 12-inch-high wooden frame, and filled the whole thing with topsoil and compost. We later constructed 2 A-frame trellises out of a few old wooden pallets that we picked up at from my husband's work (for free! Also try Lowes, etc.) and strung netting hand-tied from twine over each. They held up surprisingly well in a pretty nasty spring storm, so we might try bigger ones next year.



We planted peppers, pole beans, peas, zucchini, cauliflower, pumpkins, cantaloupe, eggplants, and carrots. All in the same beds! All at the same time! What little we knew...or I should say, how much we've learned in the last 6-7 months. I think the most we had researched ahead of time in terms of planting spacing and timing we learned from the backs of seed packets and transplant containers. After exhaustively planning for NEXT year's garden, I realize how ridiculous the timing and spacing was, and we are lucky that we actually had some success despite ourselves. The zukes and peppers have done very well, and the cantaloupe and eggplants had a lot of potential, but we went on a week-long vacation right at a crucial time in their little lives.



In my next post I'll talk about what we reaped from this little experimental garden, but I have to say that our best harvest this year was lessons learned. We've got BIG plans for 2010, and I'm excited to documenting it all in this space. Stay tuned!