Xavier's Garden
Greetings to everyone.
Late last year a wind storm blew over a 30 some foot Blue Spruce pine tree in our front yard. After having the stump removed, a large 20 foot diameter circle of dirt remained.
In the winter and early spring months that followed, Xavier used the dirt patch as a sandbox. He plowed roads, trucked dirt from here to there, dug up long rotting roots from the circle's former occupant. He even planted a single onion bulb along the northwest edge.
In early June, Xavier wanted to plant some seeds near his onion. Rebecca had several squash seeds and several pumpkin seeds soaking in a dish. We used those. After all, we had a nice large patch for the vines to expand into.
The soil did not look like it would support much; the forty-some year old pine tree had drained the ground of any nutrients. But, it would be fun for an evening and Xavier was excited to plant. We planted and we marked where we planted. We put up flags to keep the lawn crews from tromping through the garden. We even trenched in a soaker hose around all the plants (even the thriving onion).
A couple weeks later, every seed had starter leaves above ground—even the seeds Xavier spilled and we did not pick up sprouted. Rebecca mixed up some fertilizer and applied it, and the garden did very well. Daily we worked the land, training the vines to stay off the lawns, both ours and the neighbor's.
The patch garnered much attention from the neighbors, and many comments. We even had someone leave a hand-written note expressing their admiration of the patch.
The Spaghetti Squash (as always) did well. We had concerns about the Butternut Squash, but it outgrew and out-produced the Spaghetti Squash! And every time you counted the pumpkins, you found another you did not notice before.
