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My back hurts, my arms ache and I'm sunburned. With the soil warming up to temperatures favorable to seed sprouting, the farmer in all of us is ready to take hoe in hand and test the hortacultural waters. I'm planting a garden this year and it's hard work. Planting and weeding a garden is not for the faint of heart, or maybe it is. Part of my rehabilitation from recent heart surgery, is the exercise I'm getting from working my little plot of soil. My doctor gave me his permission to do this as long as I didn't grow Broccoli. He says there is enough of that plant in the world already. My garden is on a friend's property; mine has a line of trees, practically all shade and no sun. His property is large, but not as gigantic as it was before the Civil War as one of the largest plantations in Alabama, encompassing thousands of acres. While I'm working the soil, I look out at the shells of two old broken down fireplaces that once warmed the dwellings of sharecroppers and tenant farmers on the old plantation. Just a few feet away from those stone markers, my corn is breaking the surface of the ground, unaware that they're in the presence of history. There are steps in developing a garden and all of these require work. Luckily the ground was plowed a few weeks before I began my work, so I didn't have to break up the soil. Here are the steps I used in planting my garden: After the ground is plowed, lay out straight rows. It's a sin in the south to have crooked rows. My rows are as straight as an arrow flies. I do this by tying a bright red nylon string between two stakes that I've driven into the ground on each side of the garden. Dig a furrow with a hoe by following the nylon line. Sprinkle fertilizer in the furrow and then mix the soil and fertilizer together with the hoe. I use 13-13-13 blend for my garden. The trick is to pour the correct amount into the furrow; too little and the plants won't spring out of the ground and flourish. Too much and the plants will burn when they escape from the soil. Sew the seed in the furrow, about 4 inches apart. I don't adhere to this rule very well. I just scatter a lot of seed in the row and thin them to suit if they all germinate, which about one in four don't. Instructions on the seed packets show us precisely how deep and how far apart to plant the seeds. I have a lot of trouble with this step of the process. It's difficult to spread only ½ inch of soil over the seeds. One packet said to plant corn one and a quarter inches deep. I don't worry about such precision. It's not like someone is coming behind me with a tape measure. A lot of my time is spent resting. In between breaks I plant corn, purple hull peas, and squash and watermelon seeds. I drop tomato and pepper plants into the holes I've dug as I follow the red string. Spreading mulch under the tomato plants result in larger plants and larger fruit because mulching keeps the ground water from drying up as fast as it ordinarily would. Mulching leaves around pepper plants doesn't work for me because they shrivel up and die. I don't why that happens, but it does. The joys of gardening have just begun for me. By the time the peas, corn and tomatoes have really started to grow, insects have discovered them. There are many proven insecticides on the market. You can choose one of these to kill bugs or you can plant flowers such as Daisies and Marigolds. They've never worked well for me, but they do add a touch of class to the garden. Hopefully something I buy or plant will one will kill the bugs on my squash, which appear to be in dire peril from all the holes it its leaves. By the time I've conquered the battle of the bugs, weeds will have over run my little piece of horticultural heaven. Gardening takes a lot of effort, but the work I put into my garden will not have been in vain if I get through the growing season without another heart attack. Bob Alexander is well experienced in outdoor cooking, fishing and leisure living. Bob is also the author and owner of this article. Visit his sites at: http://www.homeandgardenbob.com http://www.redfishbob.com
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garden, vegetable garden, heart surgery, soil, broccoli, Civil Was, plantations, sharecroppers, tenant farmers, corn, fertilizer, purple hull peas, squ,
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