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We started in the garden right after our morning coffee, when the day still felt soft and manageable. But that dry wind had other plans—so we jumped in early, determined to get every vegetable in the ground and tucked under mulch before everything dried out.
I started first, and soon Mary followed me out, and we tag-teamed the beds. I turn the soil, Mary plants the babies, I follow up with mulch, repeat until we are too tired to move.
My smile keeps the bugs away!
We start wit one year old bales of straw which has been sitting on the ground behind the garden absorbing the water and hopefully forcing whatever seeds are inside to germinate and croak!
Why straw works well
- Moisture retention: It shades the soil and slows evaporation.
- Weed suppression: A 2–4 inch layer helps block weed germination.
- Soil improvement: It breaks down over time, adding organic matter.
- Temperature buffering: Keeps roots cooler in heat and reduces soil crusting.
We start with bales of straw!
After each plant is in the ground, we follow it up with careful mulching.
3-4 inches deep around each plant.
It takes a lot of tools to maintain the garden, so we have our garden workbench adjacent to the garden! The brown cover rolls over everything at night and during inclement weather!
The garden workbench is a busy place!
By 1:30 pm, we were officially pooped out. Mary dug the weeds out of the large bed so we can plant corn, watermelons, and cantaloupes within the next few weeks. Watermelons and cantaloupes take between 70 and 100 days to produce their fruit depending upon the variety.
At 2:00 p.m., we headed inside and started getting ready for tonight’s festivities at the Elks Lodge—because nothing says “party time” like sprinting to glam up for a building named after a large, judgmental deer.
We got ready for an unforgettable St. Patrick’s Day celebration, where the luck of the Irish is sure to be on our side! We plan to dive into a delicious buffet featuring corned beef & cabbage, shepherd’s pie, and Jameson chicken. We will quench our thirst with a selection of drinks, including Guinness stout, Harp lager, Smithwick’s red ale, and fine Irish whiskeys. We expect there to be lively Irish thistle dancers and we will dance the night away to the energetic tunes of the band Sideways.
