So the first weekend in June I headed to Ohio to surprise my father for his birthday. The surprise definitely worked. And he was so happy to see me so I could help in the garden! Scenes of this manual labor are below, but there are three things I learned/was reminded of during this adventure:
1) Container gardening is WAY less labor intensive than in-ground gardening.
2) Bugs are a pain. A really really itchy pain.
3) I can't wait to have a house and big yard with giant garden of my own. :)
Saturday we tilled the garden, added several (very heavy) wheelbarrows of compost, and then planted.
We got all the seedlings from a local nursery that had a pretty decent selection. Now my parents have tomatoes, peppers, corn, beans, watermelon, acorn squash, zucchini, yellow summer squash, and potatoes.
Then we installed the GIANT enclosure my dad had built for the blueberry bushes. I had fond memories of picking pounds of blueberries off the bushes, but apparently they'd outgrown their previous netting.
Like I said, this thing was massive. We put the netting around it on the driveway, then trapped my sister inside.
And then installed it over the blueberry bushes. I fit surprisingly well. So maybe dad didn't overestimate the size!
And the day after we planted we installed (for the first time ever) a fence around the garden to keep deer, rabbits, groundhogs, raccoons, cats, dogs, etc out of the garden. How have we never had a fence around it before?Lots of gardening during the visit - which I certainly wasn't opposed to. Mom and Dad have promised photo updates of the garden, so I'll hold them to that!
Yes it is labor intense but the rewards are well worth it. You do very well with your potted garden however and they take a lot of work just a different kind.
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