So, you are tired of paying such soaring prices for groceries and vegetables at the grocery stores. You say to yourself, “Why, I can plant my own garden and raise my own veggies like my grandparents did.”
Well, this type of thinking has its pros and cons.
“Yes-sir,” you say to yourself. I can break up that little spot in the back yard and plant my own garden.
First, I am going to need a tiller ($500). Then I will need a shovel, hoe, and rake ($75).
You think to yourself that you should have taken a soil sample and thrown some lime on the garden spot back last fall. But what the heck, I’ll just haul a load of mulch this spring and spread it over the garden just before I break it up ($100.00).
The next Saturday morning you drive over to Eagle Springs and get yourself a large load of mulch. That evening you get the mulch spread on your garden spot. Well, the next day is Sunday, and you must go back to work on Monday, and you are still sore from spreading all that mulch.
Come Monday evening, you have had an exhausting day at work but are looking forward to cranking that new tiller up and breaking your garden spot up.
You get home, put on old clothes and shoes and off you and the tiller go to the back forty.
The first rounds with the tiller are a little bumpy but you can manage it. About half through breaking, you think to yourself, “Man, it sure would be good to have a tractor to do this work!!” But being the man, you just must finish this job before dark.
The next morning it’s kind of hard to get out of bed but you manage to get your shoes tied and get off to public work.
On the way home from work the next day you think to yourself, I am going to need a push plow to lay off my rows and work my garden with. Also, one of those push planters to plant the seed. You pull into the local hardware and purchase their last push plow and planter ($165).
Well, you had to go to the kid’s ball games that week but on Friday evening you managed to drop by the local feed and seed store to buy seeds, plants and two bags of fertilizer that cost an astonishing $100.00.
On Saturday morning you get an early start in your garden even though a friend asked you to go fishing with him that morning.
As you lay off your rows, making sure that they are straight, the birds are singing and it is an enjoyable time just to be outside away from the hustle and bustle.
As you are planting your seed you find out you do not have enough of one and have too many of the other seeds, but you make it all work out. While planting your tomato plants you forgot that you do not have enough water hose to reach the garden, so you just tote the water from the house.
The next Monday evening you go by the local hardware and buy two heavy-duty water hoses, a couple of sprinklers and a timer ($100)
After a week or two you start seeing your seeds start to sprout and your tomato plants are really taking off and looking good. My, won’t those homegrown tomatoes taste good?
A couple of weeks have passed, and it is time to add more fertilizer and a little nitrogen. But before you do, the whole garden has got to be plowed out and chopped before the grass takes over.
Man, we sure could use rain or my water bill is going sky high.
As the tomato plants get larger you will have to stake them to keep them from falling over. You buy ten tomato cages ($50).
Several weeks have passed and you did not realize you planted so much squash. They are coming off by the bucket full. Beans are in full bloom, and you have spotted small cucumbers growing on the vines.
Something is eating my tomato vines. It looks like hornworms. Back to the hardware for a bag of Seven dust ($12.00).
Finally, my first tomato, but it has blossom-end rot, and something must be done before all my tomatoes are lost.
As your garden really starts to produce you have forgotten the weeks’ vacation at the beach your family had planned. You tell your neighbors and brother-in-law to gather all they want.
The day you come back from the beach you notice that part of your garden looks like someone mowed it down. Then you discover dreaded deer tracks at the end of your garden. You put up scarecrows and spray deer spray all along your garden ($20).
As summer arrives and the sun really bears down your garden starts to wilt and die and there is not anything you can do but look forward to all that work again next year.
So, you think to yourself, was my new garden worth it or next year should I just buy my produce from local farmers or farmers’ market? You decide.
J.A. Bolton is author of “Just Passing Time,” “Southern Fried: Down-Home Stories,” “Sit-A-Spell,” “Early Years at Blewett Falls,” and co-author of “Just Passing Time Together” all of which you can purchased on Amazon or bought locally. Contact him at ja@jabolton.com
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