Gardening on One Acre
**EDIT: Since my fathers passing, I’ve decided to continue gardening because I love plants, and love the time that we spent together in this project. He helped me start it, and I’m determined to finish it. Anyways, the love for plants continues but I’ll just have to do a lot more research now instead of just asking my dad what to do. Also, please ignore the tenses in the next paragraph, I did not want to change the present tense when talking about my dad to a past tense. Forgive me grammar perfectionists. **
My family history is quite interesting. My dad, David Williams, grew up on a dairy farm on the Northside of Fort Smith, AR and woke up every morning at 4am to take care of cows. He had a strict unaffectionate father who’s main priority in life was to see the success of the farm, animals, plants, and all. If you know my father, he looks like a farmer. He always has a cowboy hat on, and could tell you anything and everything about cows, or any kind of garden plant. He’s a walking encyclopedia (kids don’t know what those are anymore) of farm life, and he taught my sister and I to be prepared to provide for ourselves. Since then, my sister discovered she can’t keep plants alive, my dad has a hard time working outside for extended periods, which leaves my mother and I to be the gardeners for our family.
This year I decided to be super ambitious and not only start a garden to provide the veggies we like to eat, but (hopefully) also enough to sell at local farmers markets. It’s been a dream of mine for about the last year and a half to be able to create fresh flower arrangements for these markets, along with selling some vegetables. Arkansas weather can be unpredictable, with highs in the 70’s during the day and lows in the 30’s at night. With that being said, taking care of plants during early spring can be a little difficult.
To combat these issues, I started my seeds indoors in seed starter kits. Thankfully, these kits had a place to pour water into the bottom of the container so I didn’t have to water as frequently, just when I noticed the bottom of the tray was getting dry. People had given me several packets of seeds so those were the first to get started. Sunflowers, Cutflowers, Zinnias, and Pumpkin seeds were what I put in the seed starters about the middle of March. I also went to Walmart and bought kale, spinach, cabbage, onions, bell peppers, jalapeños, and strawberries that had already grown to several inches tall. All these plants stayed inside until the weather stayed above 40 degrees at night, but as weather allowed, I would take the plants outside during the day so they could soak up the sun, before bringing them back in at night so they wouldn’t die.
The area we have set aside for our garden had become overgrown since we haven’t kept up a garden in several years, so during our quarantine fun (or not) we worked on preparing the soil, ridding it of weeds, and even cutting down several trees around it that would prevent the plants from getting enough sunlight. Since this past week, Arkansas weather decided to be a bit bipolar and drop back down into the 30’s, I built a mini greenhouse using PVC pipe, pipe straps, and visqueen around the beds that I already had plants in to protect them from the frost. My goal is to have all the plants in the ground by around Mid-May. Our garden project is far from being complete yet, but I am looking forward to the cheerfulness that picking veggies brings, and the joy that comes from watching something grow.
What are you growing right now? What is your favorite plant? Least favorite plant? What do you kill every time? (For me, it’s cilantro.) I’d love to have a chat about plants over on my Facebook page or my instagram page! (Links to both are below or at the top of this page) Bonus points if you show me a picture of your garden!!
Stay sane, and spiritually fed friends!