Garden at the Gardiner's Cabin

I have been working hard to establish a working garden at my cabin for the season this year. The Saturday before Memorial Day was spent in the garden hoeing and tilling the rocky and clumpy ground to establish enough mounds to plant some seeds. We planted 4 rows of peas, 1 row of green beans and 21 mounds of pumkins (of all sizes).

This garden is basically an activity for the kids and something for people to watch me do... as part of my interpretation I do laundry with the kids, and have them help me in the garden as part of the pioneer chores the children would have had to do. We also beat rugs... but that is another story... :) Because of the garden's value to my interpretation I was very stressed that it might not start growing... the rocks and clumps in it made for a lot of obstacles, and no one seemed to know how old the seeds actually were... So there wasn't a lot riding on them... Plus, these plants get watered every 3 minutes all day long... We tried to keep a large garden so we wouldn't drown the poor things... but without corn, there isn't much we could do.

But I came to work last week and discovered that I have sprouts!!! YAY!!! I didn't kill them and they grew in the terrible soil that I have to work with... I am absolutely impressed. My pumpkin mounds all have 5 or 6 good sized sprouts. My green beans are all growing nicely as well... I wish I could say the same for my favorite crop (the peas)... but I discovered most of those seeds washed up from the rain moving around those good for nothing clumps of manure...

With a new found excitement I spent most of last Saturday in the garden again. With all the rain my ditches where I have the children pour water are starting to get a little shallow and washed out. So I grabbed a hoe and started to work for a second time, although this time I had to be careful of sprouts and roots... ;) I am very proud of the turnout. This is the first garden I have done myself. I remember a couple of gardens growing up... but I had the help from my all-knowing parents... in my pride, here are some pictures...

The Green Beans


Pumpkin sprouts!