We had been in an apartment of some kind from September of 2009 through August of 2010. We moved into a new rental house in September. Some water damage in the basement before we moved in had necessitated digging up a plot of the grass in front of the house.
By November of 2010, our landlady had not refilled the area in with grass seeds, so I planted some daffodil bulbs. By spring of 2011 I still had a big blob of dirt in front of the daffodils, which left me with the perfect garden plot.
So, I planted an in-ground garden:
I planted onions, carrots, and lettuce.
I had also been reading about container gardening and decided to try my hand at that:
In my containers I planted a tomato plant, a red pepper plant, and some herbs.
That was in May, and I still was diligently lugging jugs of water from the back of the house by the container garden to the in-ground garden in the front of the house. By the end of June I had some beautiful lettuce leaves to harvest and eat. I had planted three four-foot rows of lettuce. I’ll remember for next year that, unless I plan on lettuce being my main dish in every meal for about a month, I need to plant less lettuce. Much less.
Then work, vacation, and oppressively humid days got in the way. The container garden continued to receive care and attention (water), but the in-ground garden was left to fend for itself.
When we came back from vacation, my lettuce plants had spiked to about two feet high, and I decided they were no longer edible.
Because the lettuce plants had turned unsightly and flourishing weeds added to the unsightliness, I completely put the in-ground garden out of my thoughts except for a casual glance on my way in and out of the front door. I continued to water the container garden. I’ve now been harvesting tomatoes from the containers on a regular basis.
Finally last week I could no longer ignore the in-ground garden. I tied my hair back, set my mouth in a grim line, went outside, and pulled up the lettuce plants, which were by then almost as tall as me. I watered the one carrot plant that survived the summer, and I pulled up most of the onion bulbs. Though the bulbs only got to be about two inches in diameter, I’m pretty proud of how they’ve survived without any help from me.
This is my in-ground garden now:
Notice the daffodils? Nope, you can’t. They’re covered over with a healthy layer of weeds that I have yet to tackle.
This is my container garden now:
It wins the favorite child award.
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