May 14th, 2025

Farmer Guy

I’m getting old. Maybe I’m just out of shape. I recently made a garden in the yard. It’s 20 feet by 30 feet. It took me a little over a week to finish. It wrecked me!

It turned out really nice. It’s straight and sturdy, well, I mean the fence around it is. Plus I covered it in garden fabric so there should be very little weeding. I planted a lot of tomatoes. I also have cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, varoius peppers, radishes, kohlrabi, carrots, and beets. I can’t wait until harvest time.

My wife pointed out (a few times) that she was worried I was building a big pain in the tushy. She is correct. But it seems like a nice project that will be useful. I haven’t installed the drip irrigation yet, but that will really help cut down on the upkeep. I was helping my Uncle in his garden the past 5 years. I always liked getting outside and working, plus he gave me a lot of veggies. I also learned a lot. It was time for me to put those skills to the test.

Gardening is a hobby for a tinkerer. There are different methods to grow and support plants. I find myself going over strategies and inventing new ways to get the job done, watching videos, and thinking of ways to automate watering. Later I can implement these ideas and see if they work. If they don’t, I can tweak them until they work the way I like.

A lot of people are growing tomatoes up strings supported from above. I tried it last year and it worked well. So I installed the infrastructure I’ll need to do it in my garden. Hopefully I’ll have enough tomatoes to can a lot of spaghetti sauce and salsa. If I can make all we need for a year and be able to give some away, i’ll be satisfied.

I envision growing a garden for the rest of my life. I should get pretty good at it. Maybe some day I’ll be able to teach someone the tips and tricks that I learned from my Uncle, and some things I’ll learn along the way.