Fighting the Flood

So today was fun.  And by fun, I mean painfully terrifying as I slowly and helplessly watched the rain come down harder and harder, while the lake in my backyard grew larger and larger.  Yes, my garden is somewhere under that flood.  Of course my dad and I had planted kale, cabbage, and squash just last weekend.  My poor little friends :(

This morning started off with me digging a hole under the trunks that we lined the garden with.  See, we live in Bridgewater, NJ where the only soil is clay.  It never drains and makes a great base of a pool.  Lucky for us, our yard is slightly beneath both of our neighbors so we get quite the river of water in it when it rains.

Notice the ditch on the right side of the fence.  We dug that to help contain and steer rain water away from the garden.  Along the fence, we lined up tree trunks and wedged mud around them to seal off the garden.  It has been working up until this monster of a storm.  This picture was taken this morning, around 9 am.  I had just dug the little trench you can see on the left side of the fence to run the water in the garden down and out through the hole I dug under the fence.  Seemed to be working well.   Until it started torrentially down-pouring for the rest of the day.

See the real concern here was last weekend we had planted beans, kale, swiss chard, cabbage, pumpkins, and squash.  Not ideal growing conditions when the ground is covered in inches of water. Now squash plants like to be planted in mounds, which might be their saving grace here.  They look like little squash islands!

As for the rest of the seedlings, only time will tell.  This picture above was also taken in the morning.  It looks dry compared to the state it is in currently.  My dad actually got home from work early and we went out in our rain gear to dig water channels to try and get the water flow away from the plants.  Our boots kept getting stuck in 6 inches of mud, and I can't wait to see when the garden dries how bizarre our footprints and "water ways" look, but we salvaged the garden to the best of our ability.  Now all there is left to do is pray for no more rain.  For now, I hope everyone is safe and dry, with a raised bed garden :)

The next two photos show the "garden" (perhaps we should have planted rice) during the rescue operation.

P.S.  Pardon the blurriness of the last two photos of my dad and I.  My mom took them :)

Where Did All The Tomato Plants Come From?

I’m a late middle aged software engineer that has never gotten the farm out of his system. I grew up on a small farm in Pennsylvania, mostly corn, and to this day some of my happiest memories are from the farm.

A few years ago I started a small (8’x12’) tomato patch. Small, because where I now live we have no soil, only clay. So just digging that patch was a good physical workout. I’ve spent the last 7 years mulching it with leaves (ours and all those I could acquire from our neighbors), grass clippings, etc. That patch is now a 25’x25’ patch that produced a bounty of tomatoes and peppers last year. I know, I said tomato patch but one has to branch out (plus my daughter loves grilled peppers, onions and mushrooms).

The last few years I’m sure my neighbors have been talking about the crazy guy in the neighborhood, you know, the one that has a fenced in garden plot piled high with everyone’s leaves. Well I’m the one smiling now, because after these 7 years when I roto-tilled the patch (we’ll talk about the tiller acquisition another time), there is beautiful dark soil instead of clay. I can vouch for how far the dirt has come because my daughter and I teamed up and expanded the garden to a second 35’x45’ patch (she’s into plants that like to stretch out – squash, etc.). The new garden is just a big clay patch; literally you can make figures out of the clumps as you work it. It’s going to take a few more years to bring this patch into shape.

Ok, back to the tomatoes. When we ordered seeds this year, I as usual went a little overboard on varieties (8). This is the first year the little guys were started in Cow Pots (I love these creations), the 6” square variety. Well, with all that space and lots of seeds, what else could I do but put 4 or 5 seeds in each pot? Of course virtually all the seeds germinated which left a big sad job, having to prune back the sprouts. My daughter always reminds me of how I can never seem to pull out the smaller sprouts leaving just the big guys. I was determined to take on the task this year, and then it happened. I saw the spare Cow Pots sitting there when I was about to do the deed. Wait, rather than pull out and kill the little sprouts I decided to “transplant” them. The odds weren’t in my favor, I figured they wouldn’t make it but at least I’d have tried. Well, the original 24 tomato plants became 100 tomato plants after all the transplants were successful.

Now, add to the bounty of these initial plants, the other (haven’t counted) tomato plants that I’ve since started (a few varieties I just had to try).

So, the short answer to this posts’ question is they came from my inability to not bring to fruition every little seed that germinated!

~Dennis

Let's Get Dirty!

You are looking at the view from my kitchen table.  Two indoor tomato plants flank the view of my newly extended garden.  It's spring, and it's time to get dirty.  This is a wonderful time of year, finally getting to dig up the dirt and plant seeds that will grow into delicious food!  Gardening is a way of life, offering more than just amazing fruits of labor.  It gets you outdoors in the sunlight, playing in the dirt. It also gives you an amazing workout, so ditch the gym and grab a shovel!  Nature is awesome.

My name is Margaret and I am starting this blog to share my gardening story.  Every year offers different challenges and obstacles, as well as plenty of success and gorgeous plants.  Let's not forget the amazing food that comes along with it!  This is my gardening journal, if you will.  Along with my dad, Dennis, and a few other gardening-crazed friends and family, this site will be discussing everything gardening, from seed to fruit!  New at gardening?  Not to worry.  We will cover everything from urban gardening to full-fledged backyard vegetable forests.  None of us are professional gardeners, we all just have a huge passion for it and have been at it for quite some time now.  Feel free to comment on posts, we would love your input and experience!  I want this to be a open forum to share information and fun stories :)

This blog is a spin-off of my food blog, Margaret's Dish.  I wanted to share the labor of love I put into growing each vegetable to make all my dishes truly farm-to-table.  Make sure to follow Margaret's Dish to keep up with recipes that are coming fresh out of my garden!  Now, let's get dirty!