Garden Cleared

My dad cleared the garden plots of the winter vegetables today. This means we're now moving along with planting the garden for the summer. As you can see, the ground still needs to be turned over, and there are a few plants left in the right plot, such as the cabbages.

This year we'll be paring the number of vegetables and fruits down from what we had last year. We're doing this because we had too many plants in the plots, and way too many vine and crawling plants that a number of plants got crowded out. We had in the old garden:

• Collards (could only get one harvest before the bugs got to them)
• Tomatoes
• White eggplants
• Okra
• Melons
• Watermelons
• Squash
• Cucumbers

 That includes three vine plants, and two--melons and cucumbers--were very close to each other, and got very crowded and overlapped. The eggplants didn't work, and the squash were crowded out by the water melons and tomatoes. This year, we're limiting it to two vine plants, the melons and the watermelons, because they turned out so well. We're keeping the tomatoes, and probably doing a couple more plants. My father says he'll turn the soil over in a couple of days, and the plants will probably be put in the upcoming weekend. I'll tell you the final plants we'll be raising then.

Winter Plants Make Nice Spring Flowers

Sometimes the most unassuming plant can make the best decoration.

Last summer, my family had a vegetable garden and we had a variety of vegetables and fruits in it. Not all of them were a success, and some were only a brief success. The collards we planted at the beginning of summer were one of those brief successes, and we enjoyed them while we had them before they were destroyed by the bugs. My mother especially liked how well the big leafy leaves looked all on their own.

Fall comes in and my mother did not want empty plots or the withered remains of the vegetables as an eyesore in the backyard. We took the advice of our landscaper and had some winter collards planted. I didn't really pay much attention to them over the winter, they were just there. It wasn't until spring rolled around that we got a pleasant surprise.

Turns out winter collards produce some very nice yellow flowers on very tall stems. These are at least five feet tall, if not taller than me now. My mother is rather pleased with how they look. We're enjoying them until we get around to cleaning out the plots again for this year's spring and summer plants.

Unfortunately, I don't know the variety that was planted.