Texas Rain is Big, and My Garden is Getting Started

Stan's TX rain garden. Look close, you'll see a few veggies.

One of my Facebook friends, Stan, lives in Texas, not too far from the Gulf, and he's really been groaning about the fact that he hasn't finished planting his garden yet.

A narrow island of plants surviving the flood at Stan's

I think Stan has had a great excuse. It's been raining in his neck of the woods. Not just a sprinkling. Not just a downpour now and then. The rain has been coming down like a monsoon! Practically non-stop for weeks! I think he mentioned getting 5 inches in one hour the other day, and 30 inches overnight.

I don't think Stan is the only one sick of all the rain. Recently he posted that the crayfish are so fed up of the rain, they've been crawling up on his deck to get out of the flood. And evidently, the Ark is nowhere in sight!

A break in the rain reveals Stan's soggy garden area

Well, as gardens go, I don't have an excuse as good as Stan's! Normally, I'd have started my container garden in late February, and my main summer crops would be in-ground by late March or early April. But I still haven't planted anything... not even the 30 lettuce plants I bought last month!

Our van, loaded down with veggies and blueberry bushes

I haven't felt like getting on my hands and knees in the dirt this year, and I have only two excuses to explain myself.

First, it seems like my time hasn't been my own for quite a while. I don't get up each day and decide how I'm going to use my time. I get up each day, check the calendar, and race to keep up with everything that's already been decided. There are various doctor visits for John and Dad, dental visits for John and me, Landlord duties, and a plethora of other responsibilities concerning family and the farm, all necessary and important, and I don't begrudge a single one of them! But I have no me time.

By that I mean I have no leisure time. As full as my life is, I have a bit of a hole in my life where pleasant, leisurely personal activities should be thriving. I'd love to have some free time to paint again, or make homemade creams and lotions, go to yard sales and flea markets, or finally make that quilt that I've been wanting to make for years out of Barry's old Hawaiian shirts. I did make the time to go to some thrift stores recently, but the whole time I felt rushed to get back home and get back to work!

Secondly, I haven't felt like planting a garden this year. I'm usually sitting down, finally, when John comes in and mentions the garden; and sitting down, tired, I can't muster the interest in deciding if and when we need to start a garden. My age and health are a big part of this problem, but after some thought, I've decided that I must have some unacknowledged resentment over the combination of my health and my lack of me time. Maybe too, my attitude has been some form of passive aggressive behavior, and realizing this, finally, it became necessary for me to take steps to snap out of it!

Plenty of veggies to plant now

Having a garden isn't a choice here, it's a necessity. We can't afford to skip it this year just because I don't feel like it. Even though there is a significant cash outlay to purchase transplants, in the long run, growing our own vegetables, then freezing and canning them, frees up our finances for other necessities; and, just as important, we know the foods we are growing and eating are healthy and chemical free. There is no chance that our grapes will be harboring pesticides in their skins, and no chance that our tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants will make us sick because of these same pesticides, or mishandling between field and store.

So I knew when I woke up this morning that today was the day I would take the leap. I drove John to the dentist this morning to get a new crown on one of his teeth. Afterwards, I suggested we go to the Garden Center at Home Depot, just across the parking lot.  We started with tomatoes, lots of tomatoes, then squash and zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, sweet peppers, hot peppers and cantaloup. Then I threw our budget to the wind and we picked up four blueberry bushes, a couple of years old and already fruiting. Last year, the twig in a tube of dirt didn't pan out for us.

We stuffed our van full and drove home in a light rain (nothing like Stan has been experiencing in Texas). We put everything out on tables to catch the rain, and I was delighted with the variety of plants and their beauty. I felt myself stirring with the anticipation of choosing beds and planting ... yes, being on my hands and knees in the dirt.

I've taken the leap! The veggie plants are here. The garden is waiting. The clock is ticking until they're in the ground.

So I'm all in for the garden this year! How about you?

Time Keeps on Slippin', Slippin', Slippin'

Collards and Broccoli bolting

Oh yeah, and weeds! Plenty of weeds!

While we were pushing ourselves at a murderous pace through the last three very busy weeks, distracted by doctor appointments for John and Dad (two to three a week), a reception for my niece and her husband, a grandchild's birthday party, bees getting ready to swarm, and a couple of pressing projects ~~ like turning our storage room into a guest room (with company almost on the doorstep at the time), changing things around in my father's room (because he was ready for a little change), and emptying out my father's house so others could move in ASAP! (Why is everything always asap?), as well as finding someplace to put all the stuff we had to move! (Can you say Yard Sale?)  ...

The winter garden moved on without us!

Mother Nature doesn't move at the preferred pace of men. She doesn't slow down and wait for us to catch up, and she certainly isn't in a hurry to get to the finish line of any particular project like a vegetable garden, no matter how much we beg her! (Are we there yet?)

Perfect and beautiful heads of Cabbage ready to pull ... and weeds

Mother Nature moves in perfect harmony with Time. They are an inseparable couple.

Flowering Broccoli ... and weeds

If you turn your back on Mother, she doesn't get offended, and she doesn't storm off in a huff. She very simply just keeps going ~ in the same direction, toward the same goal, at the same pace, hand in hand with Time.


When we turn around again and look, we are shocked to see that we have missed out on something, that Mother dared to carry on something (like a vegetable garden) without us! We might feel hurt. We might feel offended. But Mother doesn't notice.

She's already moving on. This project is over, others are in the works, and new ones must be started, whether we are ready or not.

Early tomorrow morning, I will harvest the cabbages and the collards, and see if there is any broccoli worth saving. At least I got a great first harvest of broccoli about a month ago. It's the side shoots that have bolted. I'll wash, chop, blanch and freeze the collards for summer eating. I'll cook lots of fresh cabbage this week, give some of them away, and see if I can find a local shop to buy a few of them (there are about a dozen heads).

I can't help it that we've been so busy of late. Things have to be prioritized, and I think we've done a good job of balancing our responsibilities. The Winter garden was well established and nearing it's end. We knew that. Our constant attention wasn't needed, although more than a passing glance and a nod to the fact that we needed to get in there and do something would have been good.

As Mother Nature always does, she let us slip by this time, but not without a mild chastisement, a small penance to pay to keep us in remembrance of her authority, of her timeline. Oh yes, she has given us perfectly beautiful, edible fresh vegetables, but she also gave us weeds.

As John and I move ahead now to clear the garden bed and prepare it for the summer crops, as we're bending over our hoes hacking at the weeds, Mother's lesson will teach us that it is a good thing to visit the garden daily, no matter what, to pull a few weeds, daily, a few at a time, when we see them, so they won't gather in such number at the end of the season, laughing at us as we bend our aching backs over our hoes, hacking away at their laughing little green faces.

Mother sure can be a ...

The real eternal struggle of Man!

Oh, wait! As I sit here planning to harvest veggies early tomorrow morning, and spend the day processing them, I suddenly realize I have church in the morning! Ah, well, looks like it's going to be a busier day than I thought!

Timing Is Everything

So far, each year, our gardening efforts have proven better than the year before, in spite of the constant challenges John and I face medically and financially, and our necessary commitments away from home. However, I remain continually frustrated by delays that prevent almost every project from being done in a timely manner.

If I had to look back and choose a moment when the delays first began to happen, I would say it was 4 years ago when John built a pantry for me in a nook in the kitchen. We tore out the carpet, then I scraped the cottage cheese ceiling and painted it and the walls. Then John was to put shelves on three sides of this area - about 3'x4'. The project took 3 months! It was so frustrating for me, waiting and waiting for something to be done that should have only taken a weekend. The delay was caused by a combination of things: John's desire to make it perfect, inadequate work space (we had to set up a place and break it down each time he worked on the pantry), John's job taking him away from home for days at a time, and his health (bouts of exhaustion, and lethargy brought on by a variety of drugs. We didn't know at the time just how bad his health was. We didn't know that until this year.
The next project delay was the well. The pump died close to the end of the summer growing season 4 years ago. We had to carry water from the house to the bottom of our five acres in trash cans. There was no way we could afford the thousands of dollars it would have cost to have professionals fix the problem, but John assured me he was qualified to do the job. He absolutely is, but again, between bad health bouts and attempts to earn a living, the project of fixing the well has stretched into years, and still remains unfinished, primarily, however, due to a lack of finances. So every couple of days during the growing season, for the last 3 years, we haul water to the garden in trash cans, in the back of John's work van. Last year John did manage to pull the pump up the 575 foot well shaft. It took a long time a few feet at a time. This year we think we can afford the new pump. When we get it, I don't know how long it will take to get it installed and working. This year, the delays continue. Winters are almost always mild in our part of Georgia, so I wasn't surprised when the weather turned warm in late January, and continued into February. At the garden center I found tender young plants ready to purchase, and thought the Burpee Company was suggesting that it wasn't too early to get my gardening started. So I bought at least 18 each of Romaine and head lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower, and a hundred sets each of red and white onions. I knew it was too early to put them in the ground, but I thought I could at least get my container garden started. It was February 28. The next day, March 1, it snowed. Temperatures dropped quickly after that, and it was weeks before I could pot my plants.

In the meantime, soon after the snow melted, we took the plunge and bought baby chicks. The last of John's chickens had aged out and died three years ago, and this year we could finally afford to get more. I rigged a playpen in the laundry room, and we set the chicks up in that while John set to building a tractor, or "kite" as he prefers to call it. Well, he started researching tractor designs. None seemed adequate. We'd heard too many complaints about traditional tractors being too heavy to move easily, and all the designs seemed too small for the number of chickens we would have. It was a few weeks before John was able to come up with a design we both agreed on. He started building it, and along the way had to adjust the design and change/undo some of the things he'd already done. Again, however, other projects were pulling him away and slowing completion. The chicks are more than eight weeks old now, and the playpen is cramped; but John believes he'll have it finished today. I sure hope so.

One of the projects further dividing John's time was our new kitchen garden. The space is about 32' x 22', and we've been working on it since last fall. It should have been cleared, tilled, and amended by November, but John's health was not good, and he wouldn't let me work on the garden without him. We discovered in November that John had previously experienced a mild heart attack, and that he needed surgery to implant stints. He had the surgery just prior to Christmas, and then winter was upon us.

After the surgery, John's health began to show improvement. A diagnosis of sleep apnea and the acquisition of a CPAP has helped improved John's energy level and ability to concentrate. His drugs have been adjusted, and he is doing much better now.

We didn't work on the garden again until March, after the snow, and by then, to me, we were already far behind. Cutting, clearing, burning, tilling, going for and loading mulch, and then manure, then spreading each and working it into the soil, then tilling again... it seemed to take forever. And for the first time in several years of drought, it kept raining this spring, with only a clear day here and there to work outside. In late April, we finally got our tomato plants in the new bed, but we still have a number of other plants waiting for breaks in the rain to allow for planting time. And still other things keep dividing up our time.

I've tried to concentrate on my container garden through all of this. The lettuce have flourished, and are now ready for harvest. Early patio tomatoes are thriving, and a container of Sweet 100s is full of tiny green fruit. I also have several pepper plants that are growing nicely (one even has two small one-inch peppers on it), and several tomato and cucumber plants sprouting nicely from seed. I'm also growing a number of herbs this year; rosemary, lemon thyme, dill, lavender, sweet basil, oregano, flat leaf parsley, curly parsley, and coriander.

My broccoli and cauliflower never got transplanted into the garden in time. The plants are large and lush, but only one broccoli has sprouted, tiny little heads rushing to seed. A first attempt at arugula also bolted quickly to seed, and the one leaf I tasted was terribly bitter. My radishes aren't ready yet, but I'm prepared for them to never bulb. They haven't in the last two years, but I have learned that the young tops are a delicious addition to salads. So at least the radishes aren't a complete loss.

I never even got the chance to plant potatoes, which I specifically wanted to do this year; and our springs are so warm, I always miss the chance to plant early peas. Then there are the onions. I can't express how much I want to grow my own onions this year. I had 200 sets, but the garden bed was never ready in time, and although I potted a few, I didn't have nearly enough pots for them all. So the rest were a loss before they were even begun.

Delays seem inevitable in life. Some we can control, some we can't. I am definitely frustrated by the number of delays John and I have experienced in recent years, in our efforts to make 5 Acre Farm a working, productive farm that can meet our needs and supply a little extra for our extended family. I am frustrated by the limitations of our health and finances, which contribute to the delays, and add to my frustration. Realizing the limitations that John and I have in controlling the delays we face, however, I try to take a deep breath (often) and move forward at whatever pace I can find and manage.

Mario Andretti said, "Circumstances may cause interruptions and delays, but never lose sight of your goal." John and I do have our eyes fixed on the goal. We pray it is still within reach in spite of delays and obstacles.

Saint Francis De Sales said, "Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew." I suppose that's what I've done sometimes, lost patience with myself, and lost courage that the task could be done.

John and I keep saying we wish we were 20 years younger, 10 even. We've waited a lifetime to have a chance for something as good as 5 Acre Farm, but our bodies can't keep up with the dream. That's frustrating, and it's the worst kind of delay. That's difficult to accept. But we're working on it. We're taking things one day at a time and doing what we can each day. It's not about control. It's about patience. And it's about trusting God, to do all He wants to do in us, for us, and through us while we are here at 5 Acre Farm, and while we are on this earth.

John and I are people of faith. We turn to God and His word for guidance and comfort. So we appreciate the verses in James, chapter one, which say, the trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Right now, John and I have our dreams, and we have 5 Acre Farm. We have a modest income, and each day, we have a certain amount of health. We also have faith that God has put us here at this time to do what we can. That is enough for us. His timing for all of this is everything.