Gardening...the challenges of beginners!

First of all, lets get things straight, having a home garden can be super easy but it can also be insanely frustrating when mother nature is not on your side. When we lived in town I had a small garden, my husband had built me some raised garden beds in the backyard and I could grow a handful of the fruits and veggies that our family enjoyed. But this was only enough to enjoy fresh.

I longed to have enough produce to be able to store for the winter months or even to preserve and maybe learn some canning tips and tricks from my mother and mother in law. So when we made the decision to build a house out in the country, the first thing we did was till up a section for a big garden!

We hadn't even put our house up for sale yet or even started looking into building but we knew in our hearts that this is where we would end up. We knew we wanted to start this adventure even though some people thought we were a little crazy. But what defines crazy in this world right? I'd say alot of other things are crazy right now besides having a garden out in the middle of nowhere!

First Year Garden

Our first year garden... to put it simply, brought us a lot of lessons and frustrations but more than that it brought us a lot of JOY. We loved planting seeds and seeing them grow, dreaming of what would one day be our yard and where we would put things, where the house would go, or the barn and pastures. It was fun to dream.

After we planted the garden, we soon realized that mother nature didn't want to rain when we "needed" her to. We didn't have a well or any water supply out there so my handy husband rigged up a water tank on the back of an old truck and we filled the tank up at my brother-in-laws place just down the road. So off we went to fill the water truck at least twice a week.

We also decided to plant trees along two sides of where we thought our yard would end so we watered those as well. It was a very hot dry summer so we were out there every day watering our plants! It was lots of good family time and lessons for the kids. Lots of memories made too!

Our garden and trees were growing well, we are lucky and our soil is very rich and full of nutrients for the plants. We couldn't wait to taste the fruits of our labour, but apparently neither could the wildlife that passed through. Our strawberries, peas and beet tops were quickly picked off by various animals including whitetail deer, moose and birds that inhabited the area. I guess they appreciated our labour just as much! The deer and moose also enjoyed the leaves of our baby poplar trees, but the trees are pretty hardy and managed to survive.

Our first year was a lot of work filled with a few lessons, but we had more fun than anything and we enjoyed dreaming of the future every time we were out there.

Second Year Garden

When the time came to plant our garden again for the second time, we had sold our house in town and were in the process of getting our basement dug and prepped for our new house to be moved onto it in June. We were currently living with my husband's other brother and his wife that lived just 8 minutes away. It was a good fit, the kids loved getting to spend time with their aunt and uncle and we were able to run out to the yard when we needed to.

We were able to get a well dug and had a water supply, but not until later in the summer so we were still hauling water to our garden and trees. However, we didn't have to do it as much this time around!

We knew the deer wouldn't be going through our yard as much since there was so much traffic with contractors, but we were not prepared for what came this year.

Moles!! If you don't know what these guys are they are similar to a large mouse. They dig tunnels underground and they figured they hit the jackpot when they came across our garden! One day I was weeding the garden and noticed that the peas were looking a little sad, I took one step and sunk into soft ground and what would have been their tunnel! They had dug tunnels underneath all the peas and carrots and were eating them from underground up! I couldn't believe it! I did not know anything about them, on my parent's ranch we had never dealt with them before. I did a bit of research and soon realized that they are hard to get rid of but read that vibrations in the ground can irritate them and make them move out to other areas. I ordered some solar pegs from amazon that periodically send out a vibration into the soil that deters moles, voles, snakes and other rodents from living in your garden. It does not affect anything else and does not require any chemicals. I was sold and they worked!

All in all, we had a successful harvest and we had replanted the peas and carrots which we were able to enjoy in the end. We are now living out here and are looking forward to spring so we can get some seeds in the ground. We also have a good yard dog now to keep the wildlife out.

Until next time...

Stay grounded,

Kyla