We bought this house 2 years ago because I love to garden. I went to school for Greenhouse management and Landscape Design and it is my passion! When we bought the house I had visions of Victory Garden in head. 
The first year here we spent hours and hours hauling compost, digging, dealing with horrid soil and trying to get the garden beds ready. Poor Mike worked so hard digging and digging every weekend that summer!
Last year I was all excited and started buying a ton of $1 discounted plants from Lowe’s. I planted and planted. Well, half of it died but I wasn’t slowed down and knew that this year it would take off.
Well, I got put on bedrest in April before I could do much in the garden this year. I did get some seeds in the ground and did have hope for something and the rest I would try and do in the fall. Well, after sneaking off bedrest a few times to check out my garden NOTHING came up from last and it was ALL dead. When I mean all I mean ALL of it was dead.
I could not figure out what was going on. So the week before Jack was born Mike went out and dug 3 soil samples and I took them to the county extension office to see was happening. Honestly I thought it was our soil and a problem with the new compost we brought in but I didn’t want to admit it after all the work Mike had done.
Well, they said it was indeed our soil and it would be 5-8 years of working with it before we could get it to good gardening soil and we would have to re-dig and replace everything we had already done with new soil. I came home that afternoon and just cried and cried. (yes, I know I was very pregnant but still all my garden hopes were dashed!) I took it as a sign it was time to move back to Colorado!
Anyway, after I got off bedrest I was at least going to try and get the gardens I did have back in some sort of shape. They were completely over run with weeds and I was so discouraged I just wanted to cry again.
I decided to go ahead and forge on and started weeding. After taking Oxycodone for after baby pain I felt great so I got a lot done in 2-3 days. I got one bed totally done. Well then I got put back on bedrest again for two weeks for high blood pressure. After I got off bedrest, I decided to start yet again, even though the one garden was again over run with weeds since I didn’t get it mulched.
Honestly by this point I’m so discouraged that I just want to quit. It’s been close to or above 100 with horrid humidity almost everyday for 3-4 weeks. I went ahead and did some work anyway every night. After 3 months on bedrest I needed to start getting some exersise again and after having a leech, excuse me baby, stuck on me nursing for 5-8 hours a day I really needed to get away even if it was for 10-20 minutes.
Well, after working and working I finally got the gardens weeded. I was feeling pretty good that they are at least weed free. I even was able to transplant several plants to get them in a better spot to grow.
I was still very discouraged that nothing came up in my vegetable garden except my tomatoes and onion and even those looked really sorry. We worked so hard making raised beds and hauling compost for nothing! All mom and Mike have heard me talk about for the last month is how I just can’t believe my gardens are worthless.
Well, last week after all that work we had the worst hailstorm they have ever had in 70 years according to my neighbor. It hailed for 45 minutes straight! It was unbelievable! My poor neighbor had a huge garden and it was all stripped to the ground!
This was dill and onions. The dill was over 3 ft. tall!
If I would have done all that work and had all the gardens I wanted then they would be nothing but sticks right now.
Tomatoes
So I guess even though I was just sick because my gardens wouldn’t grow God spared me all that work to just be destroyed by the hailstorm.
I am also VERY thankful we aren’t living 100 years ago like my great grandparents where our winter food supply would be gone. I just don’t know how they did it! It’s amazing anyone survived in Kansas between the heat and storms around here!
Tawra
Note from the great wise one. After 35 years of Kansas hail storms I don’t put in a garden unless I am starving. Too much heat, hail and bugs. I don’t know either how the people who settled Kansas did it. I’m just so thankful the farmers had harvested the wheat before this all hit.
Jill
PS I love to call myself the great wise one just to tease my children.
I just wanted comment on the post below. I can’t have dairy either and I found some great recipe books at the library that might help you.
Many Blessings,
Renee
I share your wish to garden… and I have ended up doing some container gardening on my balcony on the 1st floor. I am also very grateful that I do not have to live on the harvest: - ) like they did in the old days.
But it still gives me that cosy “Little House on the Praire”-feeling to snip off some fresh mint or basil leaves anyhow: - ) I pray my cucumber plants will make it… I don’t know if they are growing r e a l l y slowly, or whether I am short of patience: - )
Love your website and blog! Thanks! You are so resourceful!!!
Helene
Tawra,
I just wanted to let you know that I greatly admire your tenacity - with the gardening and the breastfeeding!
Jill
Tawra
I know you are dissapointed about yor garden! But remember God has a reason for everything! anyway I wished you had the weather and soil that we have here in the foot hills of the blue ridge mountains of Virginia! We are blessed with great weather and the montains keep us from getting major storms! We are to far inland for hurricanes to hit us and while we do have thunerstorms its nothing major! Our soil is good and we can plant just about anything! May God bless you and your family
Hi Tawra,
Congratulations on your bundle of joy! I’m sorry to hear about your issue in regards to growing a garden. All the while I was reading your blog I thought about this book I had purchased a few months ago.
It is called square foot garden and it may be a help to you in growing a garden. Here is the link….http://www.amazon.com/All-New-Square-Foot-Gardening/dp/1591862027?&camp=212361&linkCode=wey&tag=thenescot-20&creative=380737
you also may want to check out the “Garden Girl” http://www.gardengirltv.com ohhh how I love her site and videos she has a beautiful garden and so many wonderful and helpful ideas. ( she uses the square foot garden method in the heart of New York!)
Good luck to you and take care of yourself!
God Bless!
Now go read “On the Banks of Plum Creek” and be glad it wasn’t weeks and weeks of grasshoppers! Ewww. I hope you can figure out the soil solution soon. How frustrating. But don’t kill yourself doing it - your family needs you!
I also wanted to encourage you regarding the milk/breastfeeding issue. My daughter was very gaseous also and it got better when I stopped eating most dairy. It was difficult, but my husband is also lactose intolerant so we were basically already eating that way - I just stopped eating cheese, ice cream and milk. The upside was that I lost a lot of weight fast! It did take a few days for it to get out of both of our systems, so give it a while.
We found that holding her on her belly with her head near my elbow and the palm of my hand pushing on her abdomen helped ease her pain - she also slept on her tummy, which I know is a no-no but it was the only way she would get a good sleep. When it got bad we also laid her on her back and pushed her knees up to her chest bicycle-style - made my little boy laugh with all the toots!
Hope it gets better soon!
Hi Tawra,
Regarding the dairy and breastfeeding…this is going back 19 years now, but I found that whatever I ate that made me gassy, also made my son gassy. Broccoli was the worst. Maybe it’s not the dairy. Anyway, something to think about.
I spent 4 years in a state where could not have a garden because of soil/weather/pests/you name it! Thankfully I do have a big garden now, but I still have issues getting everything to grow!! Best wishes on getting your garden the way you want it…I am sure it will be worth it in the end!
Sorry to hear that people were being mean about nursing your baby. Seems folks often think that if something works for them, it should work for everyone. The best thing is having you and your baby be healthy physically and mentally!! I hope you find a solution soon, so you are all doing better!!
“Square Foot Gardening” is, indeed, a lovely book. I’ve gardened in flowerboxes, buckets, and back yards and had to improve pure sand in order to get a crop. If you can get your neighbors’ grass clippings, if they are not treated with Weed and Feed, you can compost them for additional soil. Perhaps the easiest and cheapest compost is made out of sawdust and chicken manure, if they are available in your area. Combine it, making sure the manure is dug inside of the pile, wet it down, and let it rot. The pile will heat up enough to kill bugs and pathogens.
Don’t let hail discourage you. We had two years record-breaking drought in an area which normally sees 40 inches of rain per year, late freezes which killed all fruit crops, for two years. Now, of course, we have a blighted economy. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger…
Glad to hear that Sugar Dumplin’ is doing better on soy. Sometimes mama’s illnesses come out in tainted milk.
Congratulations on your new baby.
I once read in a gardening book that you should rejoice if the weeds were thriving in your garden because it meant that your soil was good. If the soil was too poor to support weeds, THEN you had problems!
Don’t farmers sometimes plant fields of clover as a ‘green manure’ to amend the soil? Would that help?
Sorry about the hail damage. How discouraging! I don’t think I have what it would take to be a farmer.
Wow, what happened to your garden is terrible and hail can be so damaging to cars and homes as well.
Your poor soil- my poor soil. When we moved back to our “old house” here in West Virginia we knew we were leaving the only good soil I had every known behind in North Carolina. I was desperate for even a small garden but the thought of chipping through rocks and clay to plant anything made me sick to my stomach.
My husband came to my rescue and built 2 raised bed 4′X8′ and 20″ tall. I told him as we get older we will make them even taller (wink). We filled the bottom of the beds with old sod we had from other landscaping efforts. We topped the sod with newspaper and landscape fabric. We still needed over 12″ of “good soil.” I looked at the price of soil and knew it would take a small financial miracle to fill them. I only had one $50 Lowes gift card from credit card points left to spend. So we made several trips to our local Lowes store and got the torn open (recovery) bags of various potting and garden soils along with peat moss and manure. These were anywhere from $1.00- $3.00 a bag. On trip on Sunday a very desperate manager sold us 13 bags of soil for $13.00 just to get the torn open bags cleaned up. Thank God for deperate managers at Lowes!
So today I am roasting my first veggies from my garden. I just hope we don’t get hail. Take care.
I nursed all three of my sons. With my second child, I had a very difficult birth and my milk wasn’t the same(as plentiful) as for the other two. While in a perfect world breastfeeding would go without a hitch, it sometimes doesn’t. The most important thing you need to remember about feeding your children is that it has to be some sort of food. If breastfeeding is making you both crazy, then stop. Your beautiful baby is not your only child and you need to consider the well being of everyone in your household (even yourself!). Rest and love your children as much as you can. Don’t fret about your gardens - leave them be. Your main job is to look after the ’seedlings’ in your home. The Lord will provide so don’t worry about growing food right now.
i grew up in ks about 50 miles north of wichita and have recently moved from wichita to okla. our garden growing up housed a good amount of the food that we consumed over the winter months as through the summer when they were fresh. it took up the entire back yard except for a 4ft edge of grass around the outside and a clothes line at the very back of the yard. it was squared the length of two full sized ext cab trucks making it much larger then our house. we worked in the garden every day from march to september doing something, weeding, grooming, picking ect.
i guess the point i am trying to make is not to give up on kansas and the fickle seasons, extremes in temp, and crazy storm patterns. it is possible to have a hearty garden as long as you are as determined as mother nature is. the rewards will long out way the work and if you get the kids involved, im sure that they will cherish those memories as i do. next year, when im not pg with number 4 anymore, i plan on having a garden again. i need to get my fingers dirty again!
do you have a compost pile?
Hi Tawra - I’ve been getting your daily tips for a while now. Thanks for your take on the garden outcome, with the hailstorm and seeing God’s blessing in it. It really blessed me today.
I admire your thrifty lifestyle and have found being economical and wise with one’s resources to be an act of good stewardship and source of satisfaction.
Thanks to you, Jill, and your family for this website!
I had to laugh Amber when you asked if Tawra had a compost pile. It is a joke around here because she is the compost queen. Her favorite thing in the world is her compost pile and we are always teasing her about it.
I have one too and I don’t even have a garden or any flowers. I just hate to bother to bag leaves or to have dried grass tracked in so a compost pile is the answer to that for me. I also like to throw scraps into it for the birds and little rabbits to nibble on then let the rest compost away.
The difference between her and me is she looks at it and sees a gold mine. I look at mine and see a bunch of trash and dirt. You can tell who is the gardener in our family.
Tawra wouldn’t probably say this about herself but she is a great gardener. She was a master gardener (one of those people you call at the county extension for advice) for awhile and worked at the botanical gardens here in Wichita before she was married. She also worked at green houses and flower shops.
She normally can just walk outside and things start growing and turning green a the sight of her. I think that is why she is a little disappointed this year but at the same time now understands why God kept her out of the garden this year too.
Jill
I just wanted to give you a little word of encouragement, I am very
“natural” even up to having a home birth but have never been able to nurse past 4 months due to continuous thrush infections. You win some, you lose some having a Mom who’s well is #1.
Hi Tawra,
I’ve never encountered a hailstorm like the one you’ve endured as our weather is so different here in Kent, England. But I have had disasters with blight that have been heart breaking so I empathize.
I am often amazed at how a plant can survive and bounce back after I think I’ve lost it. I like to give friends and family cuttings so if (when) mine dies I know where to go to get a free replacement cutting!!
Breastfeeding didn’t work for me and my son - even though I tried sooooooooo hard. He visibly gave a sigh of relief when he got his formula feed which at the time I found so upsetting - felt I had failed. I was definitely more emotional at this time and being tired all the time and unwell doesn’t help. My doctor said don’t beat yourself up over it and she was right and you know this is true too. I think my problem was that I had decided I was going to breastfeed and thought that if I was determined enough (and i am pretty determined/stubborn) it would work out. So I have learned from this - I try to have a more relaxed approach - I ‘go with the flow’ a bit more.
Like you I am someone who needs to have an escape, something of their own going. I love sewing so since my son has been born I have been doing some small projects. I would like to make another large quilt but this is not the time. My husband has taken on more work to help with all our extra costs and so he is not able to help out as much around the house/garden.
I suppose what I am trying to say is perhaps consider altering your sights, be kind to yourself and find a smaller project to keep you going! Hobbies are meant to be relaxing not stressful.
Anyhow, am thinking of you and wishing you and your family all the very best, take care Susan
Wow, I’m suprised to see another UK reader! I’m not from England though, I live near Cardiff
I used love gardening with my grandmother as a child, but the hobby died out over time after her death (none of the rest of my family were gardners).
I now live in a 2 bed flat with a small balcony so I have been considering more than ever lately on what I could grow on it, I’m leaning towards herbs as I can grow some in a more confined space and I do use them in my cooking but I probably wouldn’t save too much money doing it.
I also had a problem with breastfeeding, and feeding my daughter formula! My daughter had a severe tongue tie as a baby and she was not able to latch onto my breast, once I switched her to formula she was very gassy indeed and would projectile vomit 2-3 times per bottle. She stayed at her birthweight for 6 weeks!
I would recommend getting a formula similar to SMA Staydown which is what I started using once gripewater, special bottles and lots of trips to the doctor failed to stop it and it worked brilliantly! It’s made to be heavier than usual formula and that makes it harder for the wind to push up. That stuff saved my daughter an operation on her tongue tie.
Lauren, I love balcony gardens. There is an apartment with a small balcony that I have driven by for years now and every year they have a profusion of the most beautiful and colorful pots of flowers. I get so much pleasure out of looking at it every time.
I keep thinking some day I will stop by and tell them how much I enjoy the flowers. I know they will think I’m crazy but I really should do it anyway. Until I do I want to thank all you gardeners for giving those of us who haven’t quite gotten it down yet, thank you for adding something beautiful to our lives. : )
Jill
Jill
When my we had a new bay window put in, The company who took out the old one was going to trash it! Of course I said no even though it was old and needed replacing I could not part with it, so quess what I did? it is sitting in my flower garden and it is being used for flowers! I know it sounds strange but with a bay window you have a “sitting” place” as I call it and since this all so was being replaced we sat it in our flower garden and it is beautiful with the flowers and out side summer decorations on it. Its not tacky but unique! I have people ask me who designed my flower garden ! God bless you all and keep up the good work!
Susan, I can just imagine how cute your “flower garden” is. Tawra will be envious of you. We are for ever teasing her because she loves and I mean loves old windows. When my son replace all of his in his old home she went crazy with them.
She used them to design 3 arbors in her front yard, another one she put mirrors behind and has hanging above her kitchen sink, another is on a high ledge in her dining room and on and on. We never know what she is going to do next with one but we have to admit they do turn out cute.
She has never had a bay window before though. Super cute idea.
Jill
Jill
Have you ever heard of 4:o’ clock flowers? I have them planted near my bay window “flower garden” and they are
so beautiful! I have the purple ones although they do come in different colors. Let me know if you would like some of the seeds and I will send you some and in case you or some of the other readers don’t know what they are they are flowers that sleep during the day and open up at 4: O’clock lengend has it that this is the way the natives knew what time of day it was or rather how much sunlight they had left because they knew that when the flowers bloomed it was late evening and night would soon come and the flowers go to sleep in the day time!
This is only my second garden that I’ve tried in my entire life - so I enjoy reading your blog - because I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m trying to save $$. Anyway, the only thing I’m really concerned about is why my tomatoes aren’t red yet - I’ve got dozens of green ones, but no red ones!!! How long does this take?? Also, my daughter (now 11mos) was fussy with my breast milk also, I switched to formula by 16weeks - and I ignored my mother!!! So, I feel for you - new babies are a challenge!!
Melissa Noel, I’m not the expert and Tawra isn’t here at the moment but in my past experience it does seem to take the tomatoes forever to ripen up but they will. It also depends on where you live and that type of thing too on how long it takes.
Where we lived in Idaho we had to grow ours in a greenhouse because the growing season was so short they didn’t have time to ripen. That is partly why you see so many recipes for what to do with green tomatoes because some of them never do have time to ripen.
Don’t worry because you can pick them green and store them different ways to help ripen them after you pick them before the first frost. Maybe some of our readers can give you their ways on this.
Jill
Tawara with a new baby and illness, maybe you should only concentrate a a few herbs or tomato plants. That way you can see definate fruits form your labors. I know I compared my barren tomato planst with my friends. Next thing you know they were seven foot tall! (I ‘m becoming afriad to go in my backyard!) The needed to grow extra tall to get enough sunlight to produce fruit.
[...] The weather is great, and we wouldn’t have to worry about hail or wind killing my plants each week! [...]