How Gardening Changed My Life

by Mo Tickleson, Staff Writer

This year my wife said to me, “We should plant a vegetable garden.” Which really meant, “You should plant a vegetable garden because I have allergies and a bad back.” Her biggest selling point was that there’d be less lawn to mow. What she didn’t tell me was that I’d spend more time tending the garden than I ever did mowing.

My wife did contribute. She went out and bought the seeds while I constructed six raised beds beneath the blazing noonday sun. All so I could eat more broccoli.

Armed with my new knowledge of vegetable gardening, my first bit of advice is: DON'T DO IT! But if that ship has already sailed, here are some tips.


How to Build a Raised Bed 
 

Plants do not like the soil that actually comes with your house, so you will need to build cozy beds for them to grow in. Here’s what to do:

1. Option A - Build from scratch
1. Buy highly expensive wood from the lumberyard. (Not pressure-treated wood, which will leach chemicals into your food. You must get non-treated wood, which will only last a few years unless you are planting your garden where weather does not affect it, such as inside the house.)
2. Borrow your neighbor’s power saw. Joke about slicing your fingers off.
3. Cut the wood to size. Worry about slicing your fingers off.
4. Assemble wood into a square or rectangle or, more likely, a rhombus since it’s damn near impossible to get four perfectly square corners.
5. Pound nails into the wood. Take very long beer break after pounding your thumb one too many times.



Photo by arkworld Pete.

2. Option B – Use a kit
1. Pay even more money for one of those ready-to-assemble raised bed kits from Lowe’s (which will only last a few years unless you are planting your garden where weather does not affect it such as inside the house).
2. Pay the neighbor’s kid to assemble it while you sit back with a beer.
 

How to Plant and Tend Your Garden

1. Fill the beds with dirt. You’ll find yourself shelling out big bucks for something you yell at the kids for playing in. However, plants like fancy dirt. Compost, it’s called. You crunchy folks will be able to use the compost from the rotting produce in your backyard bins. The rest of you will have to buy bags of compost from your local nursery or garden center. And I mean lots of bags. Lots of trips to the garden center. Usually during the NBA playoffs and when it’s raining.



2. Plant seeds or seedlings. This may sound like the easy part, but do not be fooled. You cannot happily sow plants at random. Veggies are very particular about their location and their neighbors. Even if you’ve never gardened before, you must be able to envision how the garden will look come August so that you don’t put tall plants like tomatoes in areas where they’ll block the sun from short plants like radishes. (Radishes, by the way, are very quick and easy to grow which is why we have them in our garden even though we never eat radishes.) 


   
   You must do comprehensive research on which plants get along. Plan to spend a full day at the library for this part. It is a very complicated arrangement that will remind you of the guest dinner seating at your wedding. Beans, for instance, do not like basil or onions, so keep them far apart. However, beans will happily co-habitate with carrots or celery, BUT carrots do not like celery so be sure they do not get near each other while hanging out with the beans. And rather like Uncle Louie at your wedding, nobody likes the potato. If you invite him into your garden, you’re better off giving him a plot all his own. 


   
   One more thing about sowing seeds: Be sure to do it sober enough to comprehend the instructions on the seed packets. It can get very confusing. And you don’t want to sow a crop ½” deep and 2” apart when it really needs to be ¼” deep, 5” apart, 45 degrees to the north and six feet under.






Diary from EasyPeasy Vegetable Gardening

3. Tend the garden. Once the veggies are in the ground, the trouble begins. Now you must check almost daily for weeds and soil dampness and bugs. You will feel a bit like a harried waiter as every plant has its own specific requirements. Some will prefer lots of nitrogen in their soil while others want just a little bit on the side. Some need to dry out between waterings; some are waterholics.
   
   You may pull your car into the driveway after a long day at the office and try to sneak by the plants into the house. But they will give you wilted looks and send bees buzzing around your ears until you pay them some attention. None of them will tip you.



4. Keep a veggie diary. Apparently, it’s a good idea to keep a notebook of exactly where you plant your vegetables and how well they’re doing so that next year you can read your notes and wonder how you got roped into doing this again.

Veggies Everyone Should Have in Their Garden

1. Tomatoes  It’s not a real garden without them. And they have many uses such as eating them right from the vine, making pasta sauce, adding to salads or using them for target practice at the squirrels who keep digging up your garden.
2. Radishes  See above.
3. Basil  Another easy to grow plant. It’s so easy, that you might end up with basil bushes if you don’t harvest it frequently. My wife uses it in her famous pesto. Famous not because it’s really good, but because it’s what she always whips up for summer potlucks. As in, “Oh, the Ticklesons are coming? Better make something to go with pesto.”



Design by Saxton Freymann

4. Zucchini  This is what third-world countries should be growing. Just one plant will provide enough zucchini to feed an entire village for one year.
5. Green Onions  Plant these purely for the fun of drawing faces on the bulbs.
6. Kale and Spinach  These hardy veggies don’t mind colder temperatures and are among the healthiest things you can put in your mouth. When basil season is over, we use them in a party salad that everyone admires and no one ever eats.

A Few More Things You Should Know

1. The money you spend on your garden will be much, much more than if you just bought your veggies at the supermarket.
2. Once you commit to a garden, you can no longer take summer vacations. Because nobody will house sit once informed of the fact that they will be weeding, watering, harvesting and handing out zucchinis to the neighbors on a daily basis.

As much as I’ve complained here, I have discovered the upside of the gardening life. When we’re in the house on a weekend with nothing to do and I notice my wife’s eye wandering to some home improvement project, I immediately jump up and tell her I’ll be “working in the garden.” Then I head out to the tool shed where I watch the ballgame on my little TV. Due to her allergies, my wife never comes out to the garden to check up on me.

She never reads my column either, so my secret is still safe.