Mommy, are we going to grow horses?

After a lot of plant pulling, soil tilling, poo spreading and determination we finally got the garden ready for replanting. I'm excited to try this gardening gig again, even though I'm a bit anxious about the possible disappointment. But we keep moving forward with the hopes that we can trick a plant into growing and producing before we kill it off with our evil black thumbs.

Aidan was a GREAT helper pulling up all the plants from last season. I haven't seen this kid this happy helping out in a long time. This is a synopsis of our conversation.

You mean I can pull up the plants?

Yes

And throw them against the fence in an explosion of soil and leaves?

Yes







He felt great man-power from this and as Martha would say…it was a good thing.

Then my man-tool-operating Farmer B stepped up to the plate with the gas-powered tiller and went to town tilling the garden.



It looked almost back to something recognizable when he was done. That man of mine does work hard and I appreciate him for it.

Of course the magnificent ending involved Aidan and I poo-flinging with our newly-acquired trash can of horse manure. Funny how kids put things together in their heads.



Aidan and I are taking shovels of horse poo and spreading it around the garden when he looks at me pensively and says

"Mommy, are we going to grow horses?"

It was a valid question. Everything else we've spread on the garden was in an attempt to grow said item. So if you spread horse poo, logic could dictate that you're trying to grow horses. The rest of the day has involved questions about horse poo, gardens and just animal poo in general.

The dog quite enjoyed this Smörgåsbord of deliciousness. Please don't tell Farmer B. He just washed the dog and he doesn't smell like goat for once, so I don't want him knowing that he was frolicking in horse manure all day.



I got to work too and decided to take a photo of myself hard at work so you could see that I really am a shovel-carrying, horse-poo-flinging gardener.



Now we whip out the Florida Veggie Gardening book and see what we should plant...I have potatoes, sweet potatoes and lettuce on the list, but that's it. Actually I need a good how-to vegetable gardening book, you know the kind - how to thin, how deep to plant, when to transplant, etc. Since I did so much wrong last time, maybe I need more direction. Anyone got any book recommendations for me?

The Results are In

A small miracle happened last night - after many paper towel changes, our soil sample finally dried out. After a long and arduous day at work, Farmer B came home to find me in the kitchen giddy as a schoolgirl with a pile of dirt and a mess of test tubes and colored pellets. I was waiting for him to get home to begin the testing since he knew the hidden location of the distilled water in the garage. So instead of relaxing on the couch for the evening, Farmer B and I indulged in a romantic night of soil testing.

So the testing began. It involved spoons, measuring cups and a shot glass (don't ask - we improvised). Add water to line, drop in pellet, add soil, shake, repeat, etc. All very fancy stuff that reminded me why I got a C in High School Chemistry. After about 10 minutes of this nonsense our kitchen looked like a meth lab. There was a lot of shaking involved, but the funniest part of all? We only needed to use 2 teaspoons full of soil. Good thing we did all that digging, collecting, drying, removing of non-soil-bits, and squashing of bits larger than a pea. Two stinking teaspoons. Nice.

After all that we found out that our soil is much like us: confused. The pH (green tube) appears fine...maybe? The Nitrogen (red tube) appears low.The Phosphorus (blue tube) appears low. And the potassium (yellow tube) was too confusing to read, so we took that as a sign that it must be perfect. (You can click on the photo in this post to view it larger and see the results yourself).

So now we have the results...this changes nothing. We are still planning on planting next week in that very same confused soil.

Responsibility Kicks In

You know, Farmer B is a responsible guy. He does all the responsible "man" things that you'd hope a husband would do. He makes sure we have every feature possible in our house alarm system, he makes sure both dogs get their heartworm pills on time every month, and he makes sure that we never run out of beer. But he skimped on the soil testing and tossed down lime and 6-6-6 on our garden anyway. That is until a trip to Lowe's this weekend to buy seeds for our August planting. After searching the entire garden center of Lowe's with no avail, we asked an employee where to find their seed packets. Her response "Seeds? This time of year? No, we only carry seeds in the spring" (insert condescending chuckle here).

Since we doubted that insanity we went inside the store to look around, when Farmer B saw something we couldn't live without: a "Do It Yourself" soil testing kit. Apparently soil testing is only for chumps when it involves driving around town looking for the soil testing office, but soil testing is for winners when it involves an intricate system of test tubes and hazardous colored pellets that you can do in your own home. So we are now the proud owners of the "Soil Master Soil Testing Kit." This is one intense little kit. The first step involves getting your soil from your garden. It turns out that you have to dig down 6 to 8 inches every three feet and get a spoon-sized sample and place these samples in a cup (in our case a flourescent green beach bucket) to get a "representative sample" of your soil. Then you let your soil dry out on a sheet of paper towel overnight and begin the testing process the next day. Newsflash: our soil is a muddy heap o' goo right now thanks to all the rain we've been having. If you have followed this blog you'll know that we had a deluge of biblical proportions recently and our yard still has not dried out. Turns out this deluge was thanks for newly-formed Tropical Storm Cristobal.

So, Farmer B dug down and brought in a half-bucketfull of dirt, that is so wet that it left a big puddle of water on the table when we dumped it out on the paper towel.
This morning it was my job to change the paper towel under our wet clump o' soil to help it dry out quicker. You know life has changed for you when you're not only changing diapers, but changing your paper towel underneath your soil sample. If the day comes when the soil actually dries out I then get the fun job of picking out all the sticks, rocks, leaves and other non-soil bits that could "skew the testing results", as the instruction manual says. This should be fun because our wet sample appears to be made up of at least 50% random crap and 50% soil. Then I have to use the back of a spoon and crush any lumps larger than a pea. How far of a drive is that soil testing office again?

Trailer full o' dirt is empty!

We reached a gardening goal today: The trailer full o' dirt is now just a dirty trailer. We had a half hour or so after dinner and thought that it would be the perfect time to finish adding the organic topsoil to the garden. Besides - how dirty could the kids really get in half an hour? Did I mention that it rained and the dirt was very wet? Actually the boys did quite well raking and shuffling around in their wellies. We told them both not to sit in the dirt since it was wet and not to throw it or eat it - you know, the usual - and they actually listened. Then Jace went missing.

Jace, like most 2-year-olds, has a knack of getting into things and going missing if he is left alone for 5 to 10 seconds. When we called his name we heard a quiet little giggle - from under the trailer. His shorts are in the laundry room in a cold soak right now. Good times.

Mommy, can we turn off the TV and work in the garden?

Did you read the title of this entry? That's why we worked in the garden today. How do you respond when your 4-year-old actually says "Mommy, can we turn OFF the TV and work in the garden?" Today was not supposed to be a gardening day. We've had a setback in the household. Farmer B has come down with something that resembles the bubonic plague, but is probably a head cold. So the boys and I were trying to lay low and watch TV to let him recuperate. It got to be about 11 a.m. and the heat of the day was already a bit much for me…but you know what the boy said and you know what my response was because you don't say no to that.

I decided I'd prove I can pull my own weight so I grabbed the shovel and Aidan grabbed his little shovel and between us we loaded up three big wheelbarrows of dirt from the trailer and spread it on the garden. It was painfully hot though - the kind of hot that makes tourists pass out at theme parks. I even went out in my old lady hat that I bought for yardwork several months ago. That's when you know it's hot - when the old lady hat comes out. I put on some horrible pink shorts that used to be my mom's sweatpants because they already have a stain on them so I wouldn't feel guilty if they got dirty. (Way back in high school I decided I wanted pink sweat pant shorts. My mom showed me how to cut off the legs and hand-sew them into shorts. I have no idea why I still have these atrocious shorts with a paint stain on the leg, but they do come in handy from time to time.) I also put on a white shirt - to prove a point - and my dead-sexy knee-high tube socks (to prevent upper-calf wellie chafing) and my blue wellies. You thought that Farmer B had wardrobe issues. It was not a pretty sight.

So we went to work in the hot midday sun. The little one decided that it was too hot to get dirty and spent most of the time in the shade doing his own thing. The always-energetic-never-calms-down dog even hid under the trailer the entire time with just his furry butt sticking out panting like he was dying. We spent the entire time trying not to step on his tail - notice I said 'trying.' So it was a good day. One long hour later we came in when my 4-year-old said "Mommy can we stop gardening and watch TV?"

Wait! We got dirty

Well hold the presses! We did some more work on the garden after dinner too! Looks like the boys were energized after their long naps.

For the first time ever, we let the kids stay up late to watch fireworks. So that meant we had the fun job of trying to figure out how to entertain two very excited boys for about 3 hours while we waited for it to get dark. Next thing I knew we were all in the yard shoveling dirt. Jealous? I thought so. I don't know if you know this, but if you have a trailer full of dirt and two overly-excited small boys, very messy things happen, but they do stay entertained. The boys got so messy in fact that they had to have two baths tonight. We had to drain the bathwater and start again just so they got a bit cleaner. We got through about 2/3 of the trailer full o' dirt and the boys actually had a blast.

They're working really well in the garden and they might be getting something out of it. It's like a bad after-school special in our own backyard - The More You Know *ting*.

Farmer B was pleased that I offered to help a bit raking things back and forth and that my white shirt didn't hinder me. He went shirtless for the shoveling dirt escapade so that he didn't have to deal with any more outfit changes…for those of you keeping track.

We've talked about what happens once the trailer full o' dirt is emptied. I think we then work on the fence and then we take the soil for testing. I hope it passes the test! Apparently we put something on it called 6-6-6 or 8-8-8 depending on what the test results say. Farmer B is hoping for 6-6-6 so they can be evil vegetables. Our book says "Don't guess - test!" and that exclamation point scared us, so we're doing the soil testing.
And for the cutest pictures you've ever seen of my boys dirty faces, click on these links: Jace's hard-working dirty face and Aidan's hard-working dirty face