Shifting gears when you have a well laid plan is something I admittedly struggle with, especially when I really have a vision of what I want.
And I can vividly see our back forty with the perfectly raised beds, beautiful and healthy plants thriving in the soil, no weeds anywhere, and a beautifully rigged water barrel to keep all those healthy plants watered during the dry patches we’re inevitably going to have this summer.
It’s really quite beautiful up in my head.
What I didn’t foresee was that we’d have a monsoon season this spring rendering our tiller (and the neighbor’s best discing efforts) useless. It’s a giant mud pile that still needs some desperate crab grass control, and it’s leaving us with two options. 1) Throw caution to the wind and plant, plant, plant which will mean weeds, weeds, weeds galore come June, or 2) Shift gears.
We’re choosing the latter. Until we can get back and do the leg work that we really need to, we’re cutting back on the original gardening plan, and focusing on the side kitchen garden and the front flower beds. The side garden is going to get re-dedicated to tomatoes and salsa making plants, and then we’re going to incorporate beans, cucumbers, and squashes into the front flower beds. I’m hoping this edible landscaping will allow us to not only create something beautiful, but also still grow enough produce to can, freeze, and preserve.
