| Growing up, in Colorado when I was a little girl. We had this massive front yard and this massive backyard. We had 2 flower bed areas near our front porch and a long flower bed in front of the big 5 or 6 foot privacy fence that separated the front yard from the back yard. But the front was primarily grass/lawn. And the same with the backyard, it was mostly lawn. The back yard we did have a strip for flower garden and our rhubarb on one side in the backyard. 3 car garage and then a massive square shaped vegetable garden near the peach tree and closer to the garage. Anyway, every Spring, my dad would plant his garden. He had a garden every year for pleasure. Watching something you grew from your care. And then getting to it eat. Every Spring though, my dad and I would go to the nursery and pick the plants that we'd grow for that year. I loved getting to help pick. The smell inside that massive nursery. I could smell soil and flowery smells and baby plants. My dad did all the hard work. He turned the soil over. He planted them, though sometimes I helped. but it was 99% all my dad. To be fair, I also helped weeding. : ) But my dad would water them sometimes with the big American style water sprinkler that moved back and forth (it also helped water our lawn and garden at the same time, hahaha. Or he'd use the smaller/medium area sprinkler, that could do just the garden and sometimes he'd water it by hand with the hand sprinkler. And then later in Summer, when we needed something for our salad or for our side dish, I'd run out to the garden and pull it or take it off the plant. That to me was the best part! Then I'd bring it into the house and wash it up. Here in Japan. Our backyard is primarily grass and yard. And we have only a little strip for a garden. We did that on purpose. Because we wanted the yard mostly for sitting and lounging. However, We have been itching to start gardening. One year we grew zucchini and that was fantastic nothing went to waste. Another time we grew tomatoes. The problem though is it made more tomatoes then we could actually eat. We only use a handful a week and yet we were making handfuls by the day. So, many rotted before we could eat them. We tried freezing them. So sadly, we decided tomatoes were not a good match for our family. : ( Then we tried cucumber. I love cucumber. However again. I eat about 3-4 a week. For salads. But again we were growing about 5 a day, we cut those next day there's 3 big ones again, cut those next days there's 4 or 5 again. It was too much. And finally last year we planted zucchini again but the typhoon wiped him out. @_@ So, back to the drawing board. This January when Noboru and I were on one of our lunch dates. We said, what should we plant? I said let's not plant anything we can't use 100%. I hate wasting. And although we gave many cucumbers and tomatoes away, after a while not even friends wanted them. : ( Even they were sick of them by the end of the Summer. : ) Okay, fair enough. So Noboru said, we go through potatoes a lot. I said, true! So we thought, we won't waste any. Then we vetoed cucumbers and tomatoes. we use them just not enough to grow them. Then we said, why not lettuce and why not zucchini. So, we decided on potatoes, zucchini and different varieties of lettuce this year. That's it. Of course it's too early for zucchini and lettuce right now. But not for the potatoes. All the DIY's around here have the potatoes out. It seems the right season for our area. So we bought a small bag of planting potatoes. |
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