Old McDonald's Got Nothin' On Us Except A Few Chickens

The Hula-gen’s have a garden again this year. It was a little in doubt as we still have a long way to go until we get our yard in order at the new house. You should hear Hubby whine about the terrible shape of our grass. And the crabgrass! Oh, the crabgrass. Anyway, we decided to make time to till up a corner of the backyard, build it up and fertilize it for a garden. ‘Cause the reality is, we can’t live without a fresh supply of homegrown tomatoes in the summer. While tomatoes aren’t the only thing we plant, there is a direct correlation between our happiness and the amount of ripe tomatoes we consume between June and October.

This garden isn’t as big as the old one, but that makes it more manageable. We have 21 tomato plants this year, instead of the usual 35. I think we’ll still be okay. They’re coming along nicely, thanks to the abundant hot sunny weather we’ve had lately.

In fact, they’re noticeably bigger than when I took this picture about eight days ago. We have some small green tomatoes on the vines, so the wait for the first juicy bite is officially on. Those PVC pipes you see are Hubby’s watering system. He shoves a pipe into the ground next to each plant and uses the hose to regularly fill each tube with water. It’s a slow watering system that seems to work better than sprinklers and soaker hoses.

The garden also includes cucumbers and bell peppers. We skipped the squash and zucchini because our next door neighbors planted enough of that to feed Somalia. They shared their first squash with us yesterday. It goes on the stove tonight. Have I mentioned how much the Hula-gen’s love fresh produce? I absolutely love wandering out back and putting together dinner with whatever is ripe.

The thing that surprised me though, was Hubby’s fruit kick. I think he spent too much time on the pot with the Starks catalog ‘cause before I knew it he had ordered all sorts of fruit trees and bushes. He planted watermelons and cantaloupes. Yum.

Along the edge of the yard are three, count ‘em three grapevines. See the one in the middle?

That’s the one I’m looking forward to sampling. It’s a white seedless. There is also a red seedless and a concord. It will be next year before we yield anything from them, but they’re budding out nicely.

We figure we need a trip to the local vineyards to see how they prop up the vines. Really.

There are three apple trees.

AND we have two raspberry bushes, two blueberry bushes and two blackberry bushes. You’ll have to imagine what they look like since I forgot to take a picture of those. By July of next year I should be able to make a variety of pies with whatever is blooming in the backyard. I find that very exciting, but then I’m easily excited.

The thing about the garden that amuses me most is Hubby’s windmill.

He dragged it from the old house the other day despite some concerns that it might be a little ragged looking to bring to the new house. He loves that old thing, as do I, but was worried that our neighbors, many of whom are very picky about their yards, would be uptight about it and think it looked bad. Since I generally don’t care what folks think, I prodded him to go get it. Three days later, we looked next door, and our neighbors had purchased their own windmill, and it was gaily blowing in the breeze. Hee hee. **** Drive will never be the same now that we’ve arrived. We may have everyone there growing tomatoes before it’s over. Walking the dog at 5:45am in Crocs and holey pajamas though? Probably not.