Hi. My name is Renee' and I love to grow plants in my outdoor garden. My vegetable garden is my first love, but the flower beds run a really close second. I will occasionally be updating this page with info on what is happening in my garden, as time permits me to do so.

OUR GARDEN'S HISTORY

This is our third year for our garden at this location, in Oklahoma. The first year, we didn't have much time to work in the garden, so we chose to make a "mow through" garden, in which we planted the plants far enough away from each other that we had room to mow between them. We saw no signs of earthworms in our black clay ground that year.

Last year, we dug up shovel-width rows with "mow through" space between the rows. We added lots of new soil, including top soil, potting soil, and peat humus. When we first dug up the soil, we had a few earthworms, but not many, and they were very small. After a while, we placed black plastic between the rows to kill out the grass between the rows and help us outline the area for this year's garden. Our garden last year did a lot better than the first year here.

This year, we dug up our 3 ft. wide rows with shovels, and we have seen many large earthworms and a lot of small ones. This tells us we have been doing something right so far! 8-) Since we had such a mild winter, the kale and mustard greens and radishes never quit growing,and I have already picked some for meals. We bought a Mantis tiller around the beginning of March this year, and we are using it to mix up the sand, leaves, and dirt we have layered in each row. The ground is still rather heavy with clay, and we hope to fix that with all the extra ingredients we have been adding these past couple of years. We also started composting last fall, and we have terrific neighbors who help add to the piles.

The flowers we grow are in many different flower beds around the lawn. We raise toads and aquarium fish in a "pond" which is actually a 6 ft. across kiddie pool we sunk 3/4 of the way into the ground to help keep the temps cooler in the summer and warmer in winter. My husband has a flower bed which almost completely encircles the pond. He keeps it there for the baby toads to live in when they first come out of the pond. They are only 1/4 inch long when they move out of the pond.

THE VEGETABLE GARDEN

Here is a list of items we plan to grow this year:

beets,bell peppers, brussells sprouts, butterbeans,carrots, collards, corn, cucumbers,green beans, green peas, kale, leaf lettuce, mustard greens, okra, purple hull peas, radishes, spinach, and tomatoes.

THE FLOWER BEDS

Here is a list of the plants I can presently remember we are growing in the flower beds this year:

tulips, hyacinths, crocus, spider lilies, poppies, marigolds, chrysanthemums, petunias, pansies, lemon balm, pineapple mint, spearmint, lamb's ears, geraniums, nasturtiums, carnations, aloe vera, rose moss, silver dust, silver mound, and others I can't recall at this time.

PEST CONTROL

We try not to use any chemicals on our plants, but if worst comes to worst, we will use 5% sevin dust. We prefer to leave the pest control to our toads, lady bugs (and their larvae - look at my PICS PAGE for a picture of a ladybug larvae), hummingbirds, praying mantises, etc. We also plant petunias and marigolds in our garden to keep the pest population down. If pests start to get out of hand, and they sometimes do, I use a very diluted mix of mild liquid soap (not detergent) and water to spray the little critters down. The effect of the spray is almost immediate, but it must contact the bugs to actually work. Or, for aphids on my bean plants, I simply turn the water hose on with a strong spray and spray the little dudes away! That is about the extent of our pest control. We do all we can not to harm the bees and wasps, as they help pollinate the plants for us.

COMPOSTING

As they say....One man's trash is another one's treasure, and all those kitchen scraps and yard trimmings are black gold to an organic gardener when composted. Last year, we finally started our first composting project. We have two compost "bins" made of 2x4 welded wire fence enclosing a 3 ft. by 5 foot area and dividing it to make two bins. We also started using two rubber trash cans for more compost containers. But we won't be using them (for composting) for long, as we bought a ComposTumbler in mid-April, and are looking forward to lots of loads of "black gold" this year.

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