Get Me To The Country: March's Garden (2026)

This month's garden tour begins in the yard. Notice the mowed path in the tall grass and the missing trailer. The zero turn mower broke, followed by the death of the push mower as Bill was trying to cut this path to the garden. These breakdowns followed the dishwasher croaking right after we replaced the entire heating/air unit. The manure trailer is gone never to return because the two special sized tires which are needed to replace the flats cost more than the trailer is worth. The tiller is limping and in need of repair but at least for now, it is working.

We are tilling the whole garden this year and changing the directions of the rows from north/south to east/west. We have wondered if the different sun angle would improve the crops. Wide center aisles will be added to accommodate a man sized wheelbarrow (which is fine with me as long as a man is pushing it). The goal is to standardize the row sizes to make the hoop houses interchangeable. We are working ourselves to death trying to make life easier.

There will be a row along the edge of the fence going around the whole garden for tall things that need support. It is piled high with dirt at the base to dissuade anything from digging underneath. The aisles will be filled with raked leaves, pulled weeds, and hopefully, eventually grass clippings (when the mowers are repaired). Everything decomposed from past aisles is now mixed into the new planting beds and should make them better. We are hoping for a spectacular garden this year since some areas will be like new again.

The new design isn't exact due to winter crops that are still growing. There is a walk path between the winter onions and the fence. It will be planted with vegetables but it throws the spacing off for this the whole section. After the onions are harvested it might be rearranged now or sometime later. This is definitely a work in progress.

The beds must be raised because the garden is located on the side of a long sloping hill. The first year the garden was planted a hard rain washed everything away. A massive amount of stormwater runs through the garden forming streams. As long as the beds stay raised they are safe. The paths are the same level as the soil in the yard which has made us realize how much organic matter has been added over twenty-two years of gardening.

The upper half of the garden has been tilled once just to knock down the weeds. It has the newly built strawberry bed on the left which is beside the winter spinach in the middle and the fence corner holds the last of the now precious manure. All of this will be dealt with later.

What will absolutely, positively not be planted this year will be wax melons. Nine melons were produced on two plants last year and they either dropped unripe off the vine or rotted. This was the last one stored in the basement and it also molded. It was dumped with a vengeance in the compost pile where it can mold and rot all it wants.

A big success was achieved by my son Dustin. He has never grown anything so since his apartment has a balcony, last year I sent (forced) him to take a potted tomato. The balcony was too shady so the tomato languished. He couldn't bare to let the spindly vine freeze come winter so he brought it inside, balanced a grow light on buckets and boxes in the middle of his living room, and the grateful tomato thrived.

Last week he sent it home to me and Bill has been dragging the heavy pot out on the sunny porch on warm days.

It even came with tomatoes.

I, the greedy gardener that I am, immediately began snipping the suckers and rooting them. They will be put in the garden as soon as it is warm. The original tomato will be planted after it has been trimmed back so it can recover from transplant shock.