The Year of the Garden 2025

 

This is the Year of the Garden! I bought a mini-greenhouse and started seeds inside this spring.  It worked! My house was built in 1903. It is cold in the winter and all the porches mean there isn't a lot of winter sunshine in the windows. Growing seedlings has always been a challenge, but the mini-greenhouse was a game changer. With grow lights on each level and with it positioned near my desk, I never forgot to check the plants. Most of what I started came out healthy and strong. I had some that suffered from a fungus or just weren't viable seeds, but, hey! I'm was so much farther along than ever before. 

 

Big Greenhouse

Leon has been my right hand in all of the summer projects. He may be sorry he hangs out with me, but he is game! In April, we put up an outdoor greenhouse.  It was another new toy and just as big a factor in my 2025 gardening experience as the mini-greenhouse. When the plants got too big for inside, they moved outside. We had a thermometer on the wall, and heat sinks (various pieces of iron) to hold warmth in the early part of the season. Later I added two small fans to circulate air when it got warmer.  

I got the wild hare that I wanted to move the garden and put a dog yard north of the house. I've wanted a fenced area for the dogs for a very long time. A friend created a doggie door and small wooden pen off the north side of my house several years ago, but it was far too small for our growing dog pack. (Presently one 90 lbs., one 55 lbs. and one 30 lbs.)  This was the year I had to get a bigger dog yard. Where? Right where the old garden was, naturally. So, in late February, I realized I needed to start hustling. The garden needed to be moved in time to plant potatoes by St. Patrick's Day. Oh, oh! 

The last spike

I'm 77; Leon is 71. My son came by and moved two of the existing raised bed frames to the new area outside my back door, but most of the garden change was done by Leon and I. We built two more raised beds and then laid out a traditional garden parallel to the raised beds. We moved the red tiles that made a hopscotch game down the center path and the red tiles that supported the garden table. Leon built me a potato bin so I could see if that would be a better way to grow potatoes. (It wasn't).  We built trellises. and trellises. and more trellises... It seems everything I grow wants to climb on something. 

Leon was my engineer and partner in crime, but I had another assistant that kept me on task and helped me every step of the way. He isn't even human: Norby, my ChatGPT, advised on everything. Leon once said if Norby had been human, he'd have to get jealous of all the time I spent talking to Norby. :) How many trellises should we make? Norby had an answer. How should I orient the garden? Norby kept me from running the paths east/west the way I had in the old garden. He said sunlight and breezes would reach the plants better with a north/south orientation. How many XX should I plant? Norby found that answer. It isn't that I couldn't have dug through my gardening books for the information, but I could talk to Norby like a person and he would search the internet and give me the answers as if he were an old neighbor sharing hints. 

August 1, 2025

The resulting garden has been attractive and effective. The garden is a true kitchen garden, just outside my back door. I never stepped outside without finding myself wandering through the garden. I'd adjust a vine here, watch for ripening fruit there, pull a weed somewhere else. The old garden wasn't that far away from the present location, but it was on the north side of the house and out of my traffic pattern. I didn't see it if I wasn't deliberately going there. This placement invites me to wander. I did. So did Leon and Jen. Heck, even the dogs had to check out the plants. Lady, Jen's dog, is hell on grasshoppers. 

Sweet potato harvest

Even though Norby had a mathematical suggestion (grow X plants for this anticipated yield) I didn't listen. If I had 45 tomato plants growing in the greenhouse, it didn't matter that Norby told me 28 was all I needed. I found a home for all 45 tomatoes. This led to some interesting canning projects later in the season. I grew far too many cucumbers. I don't even like pickles, but I put up close to 150 jars of pickles for my grandkids. The Texas granddaughter sent about 30 of her share back to me. She couldn't store that many dill pickles! Fortunately, her brother in Topeka has a basement. AND he loves dill pickles. He has them now. I put up over 100 jars of tomatoes. (I love that) and froze corn (from the farmer's market), broccoli, Brussel sprouts, carrots, and peas. I canned tomatoes and green beans and froze and dried four different kinds of peppers. There were onions and garlic to dry and freeze, too. The white potatoes gave the best crop I've ever grown, but it was still too small to mess with. I'm not going to waste my time growing them anymore. The sweet potatoes, however, went crazy in the new ground. Not only did I get more than I can probably eat, but they were also huge! We will be growing these again. 

Wildflower garden

With all the vegetable gardening, you would think I had enough on my plate, but I also added to my flower gardens and moved the herb beds. I started a wildflower bed on the west side of the house. On the south side of the back porch, I planted a Jacob's Coat climbing rose and just a bit further south, I added a Julia Child rose to the bed I call Mom's Flower Garden. It contains tiger lilies that Mom planted more than 40 years ago. They have nearly taken the bed, but there is still a small corner for purple coneflowers and the new rose bush.  The herb gardens were moved to areas near the back yard. Most of them are around the white fence where I have one of the Blaze Climbing Roses. Others are in the holes of the concrete borders around the triangle bed and the north property line concrete beds. As you can see, my herbs get tucked into the flower beds so they can be decorative as well as functional.

New strawberry bed

With the advent of the new dog pen, I also had to move the strawberry bed and the asparagus bed that lived in the old garden. I built two new raised beds along the north property line. they are edged with concrete blocks. One bed holds asparagus, and the other holds the overflow from the new strawberry location. I thought that 4x12" raised bed of strawberries would transfer easily to the old triangle garden outside the back door. Fancy that. Strawberry plants seem to expand when transplanted. I filled the triangle bed and then built the concrete bed near the asparagus because there were still strawberries that needed a home. It was hard watching all those plants growing this spring and not getting any berries from them. NEXT YEAR I'm going to be bathing in strawberries. The strawberry bed was also Norby assisted. I complained that the triangle bed has been taken over by bind weed. Norby suggested planting the strawberries and then putting down cardboard between the plants to smother the bindweed. Once the cardboard was in place, I covered everything with cedar mulch. It worked well. I have had a few bindweed come up. I pulled them when I found them. Next spring I may need to refresh the cardboard and mulch to keep discouraging the bindweed. Oh, that brick bordered bed is garlic.

All and all, it has been a great garden year. I put by the harvest and also learned new skills. This was the year I started canning broths. I used a whole chicken to create chicken broth; marrow bones to make beef broth, and a wide selection of fresh vegetables to create vegetable broth. I also canned dry beans (kidney beans, pinto beans, lima beans) to add to that stash. Jen and I both love having these staples at our fingertips. Neither of us want to go back to buying such basics at the grocery. Norby's kitchen alter ego is a ChatGPT named Miss Melba. She has helped me perfect canning recipes. She checks to be sure my old recipes are using the most current canning times and processes. (Oops. My 1966 canning cookbook is a bit behind on how to process tomatoes. Definitely look for current data for canning times!)  She also helps with these new canning skills. I'm really enjoying this kind of artificial intelligence. 

South Room Pantry

Utility Room Pantry

It has been a very full summer, but I am glad we did it. I enjoy having a well stocked pantry and two freezers full. I feel Mom and my grandmothers standing behind me smiling. I come from a long line of gardeners/canners/cooks. It is good to have a full larder at the end of the growing season.