May 5, 2020 3 min read

Remember the garden box I wrote about making?

Well, the kids and I made another one this weekend. It doesn’t have dirt in it yet, but when it does, it will hold cabbage plants. In the meantime, the cabbages are biding their time in their little plastic pots, hanging out in the other box with the broccoli.

We also turned over the soil in another, lower bed where we previously had planted strawberries. I threw some lettuce seeds, a few onions and some turnips in the ground a couple weeks ago and they are all up and looking good.

In order to plant more in that bed, I had to dig out some wild carrots. Have you ever had to dig out a wild carrot? Their roots run deep into the ground, and in some instances are several inches in diameter. I actually bent a small shovel trying to get to the bottom of some of the things.

We planted a few tomatoes, some pole beans, a zucchini, a rhubarb plant, a few more asparagus crowns, and a cucumber. We also set some stakes around the blueberry bushes to prepare for bird netting. We lost most of the ripe berries last year.

When I went to plant the asparagus crowns, I was excited to find nearly a dozen asparagus shoots peeking out of the already established part of the bed. I may only get one meal from it this year. I know it’s early and I could see more, but I’ll be absolutely ecstatic about it. I’ve been waiting for two years to be able to cut what grows. In another year or so, the new crowns will hopefully be well enough established to be able to cut some from them as well.

Aside from the cabbage plants, I have only corn and potatoes left to plant. I read you can plant the potatoes in a tower of tires, and I’m intrigued. Supposedly, you plant your seed potatoes in a tire filled with dirt. When the plant grows, you put another tire on top of the first and put dirt up to the level where you would mound them if they were in the garden.

I read that you can add tires and dirt several times, creating lengthy roots underground that will all grow potatoes. From only one or two seed potatoes – and in a small amount of space – you can grow bunches of potatoes. We’ll see how it goes – my experiment with planting in a five-gallon bucket last year didn’t garner expected results.

As for the corn, I’m on the fence about it. We would have to plant so much of it to be able to freeze any for winter that I may just buy from someone else. I’m OK with supporting other farmers to do my canning.

We’ve definitely downsized our garden from years past, but our family size has changed, too. The number of kids at the table each evening varies, and it is likely to continue to dwindle as they grow up and create families of their own.

For now, I’m focused on being grateful the weather was nice enough on my day off to allow the planting to happen. My kids hanging out and helping me was nice as well.

The combination of the two was good for my soul.