Below is the spot I chose. It is just off the northwest corner of my house. In order to garden there, I had to remove the turf. This was the most challenging part of the work. It took about eight hours of work to remove squares of grass and transplant them to needful corners of the yard.
Eventually, I ended up with this (below). Yes, this is several days later and the brown car and white van are still in their same locations. My neighbors expanded their driveway in order to store more vehicles and still didn't have enough room. The orange cord in the lower right is the remnant of cable TV. Fortunately, we are on satellite.
As soon as the plot was prepared, my silver maple tree provided the seeds: dozens of samara. Nature always has its own plans.
After mixing in manure, fertilizer, lime, and top soil, I laid out my plan. Three rows of beans, one row of cucumbers, three rows of corn, two tomato plants, and six watermelon plants interspersed among the corn.
Here is how things looked yesterday: The beans are yielding copious amounts (next year I will stagger the plantings two weeks apart so that only one row will bear fruit at any one time). I have harvested two cucumbers and will probably have one to two a day for the next two weeks. I have a number of grape tomatoes growing but not quite ripening. The corn is producing ears, but I fear it will be midget corn. I don't know what I did wrong, but the tallest stalk is less than four feet tall. The watermelon is growing like gangbusters, and there are several baby watermelons growing. It is all very satisifying.
Here is a closer look at my midget corn. Last year a neighbor employed three stalks of corn as an accent in their landscaping. The arrangement was dramatic and quite lovely. Corn is an impressing and attractive plant, and I would not be surprised to see it employed more as a landscape plant.
Below is one of my problems. My watermelon is growing wondrously. You can see a bud getting ready to bloom, a blossom ready for pollination, and a watermelon about the size of a fingernail in the lower left corner of the picture. Why is this a problem? All of the authorities say that a watermelon vine can sustain and grow to maturity about one melon for every three feet of vine. Which means I have to go through and individually destroy the weakest looking young melons; only the strong are to survive. I am only to leave the fruit that has the promise of the best future. It is a good thing we don't "select" children this way, although, I guess in a way many do (or wish we did).
I have always been a bit of a wimp when it comes to gardening. When planting seeds, the instructions always have you plant too many seeds for the area so that the weaker ones can be destroyed to leave room for the strong ones. Perhaps this explains why I am going to have too many cucumbers; I couldn't bear to pull up and cast aside a seedling. Two of the three melons in the above will have to be destroyed. How am I going to destroy such as beauty as the one below? Right next to it is a baby silver maple. I have to pull it up as well. All to insure the harvest of a few full grow melons.
One begins a garden with hope in the ideal of bringing new green life into the world, but so much of gardening is destruction. That is what makes it a garden; it is controlled.
I am steeling myself to assert that control today. The red juice of many baby melons shall flow today like blood. The greater good shall be served by the slaughter of innocents. The weather calls for a chance of rain today, so maybe they shall be spared one more day; maybe I shall be spared one more day. Until then, I shall a use a sharp metal tool to remove the skin from a cucumber. I shall pour salt in its open wounds and enjoy every bite of it. Later, I shall immerse the green beans in a vat of boiling liquid and enjoy that as well.
Peace
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