Well that stunk.

When I started this blog in early March I anticipated the pictures I was going to take. Gardens filled with lush green leaves. With red and yellow pops throughout (tomatoes, corn, squash, eggplant) that just made your mouth water as you walked in it. Soil that was black - coal black - and filled with earthworms happily digging their little aeration trails.

You know - that kind of garden.

Instead, what Jay and I found was that none of it - NONE OF IT - was going to be that easy this year.

Most of what we learned about our garden this year was that we didn't know anything about gardening. Here's a short list of what we didn't know.
1) We started too early. Being anxious about our success as gardeners, we started planting seeds WAY too early. Like maybe in January. Yeah - I know. Additionally, after we set-up the fence (to keep out the rabbits) we only tilled the ground once (because we were in a rush to plant). Again, way to early.
2) As I mentioned earlier, we only tilled the ground once. A friend of mine from high school (aka Charla 'the mad seed grower' Cogdill) tilled her garden up two or three times before planting their seeds. That way all of the 'weeds' were killed off. The idea is that you till the ground and let the new seeds sprout. Then you till it again and wait. This till and wait approach would have saved us many hours of backbreaking weeding. Do you know how hard it is to weed tumbleweeds? Let's just say it's not fun.
3) We needed to plant smarter. We just didn't have a plan this year for our planting. We had way too many tomatoes (I just love them though) and far few beans. We had too many carrots, but none of our onions and garlic made the cut either. And, the greatest travesty is that none - NONE - of my pumpkins made it. That's going to have to improve.
4) We need a better watering system. Basically, we left the garden to a wing and a prayer with fertilization and watering. Somehow we need to figure out an efficient way of getting H2O to the plants while also chasing three kids and all the other things. Jay's got some ideas, so hopefully we can make this change for next year.
5) Finally, the thing that surprised me the most was the quality of the soil. The land where our home is built is literally old farm land. (I guess technically everywhere is also old farm land.) The quality of the soil was pathetic. When I say I want black soil - I'm not sure how much organic material you'd have to put into this to get it to look dark, much less black. Also, because we're 'farming' out over the septic tank lines (and it's a new home) there's still lots of settling that's occurring. I over-watered one day and Jay found a HUGE sink-hole area. No telling how far down that went.

Don't get me wrong. We had lots of tomatoes this year. And we had a great run of round zucchini. But as for other items, we just didn't have the greatest luck. Oh, except we did have a bumper tumbleweed crop.

So overall, we've got lots of planning to do this winter. We're supposed to have our first snow this week (we'll see about that) so it's time to think about next year!

But somehow I've got to get my new bulbs in the ground! I need more time! :)