![\"Bride](\"http:\/\/gopherknoll.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/grandfathers.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDavid’s dad just celebrated 91 years, mine will celebrate 89 this month and we all celebrated welcoming a new daughter into the family! \u00a0 Family is one of the few things we love even more than being in the garden.<\/p>\n
Spring is just around the corner, but as odd as it may seem, winter is when our garden usually undergoes a growth spurt.<\/p>\n
We started the garden in 2010<\/strong> with several rows of family vegetables. \u00a0We had no reliable water source and no clue what we were doing – but we had a plot of sunshine and East Texas sand. \u00a0 We picked some beans, ate a tomato, shared\u00a0some really delicious melons, and we were hooked.<\/span><\/p>\n The next year (<\/span>2011<\/strong>) we set up sprinklers and planted a few more rows. \u00a0We pumped water from a holding pond not too far away. \u00a0 It lasted until the pond ran dry. \u00a0We picked a few more beans, ate a few more tomatoes and some bell peppers, shared a lot of zucchini, picked more of those melons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Hours and hours were spent in research and hours and hours more in planning.<\/p>\n “My name is Barbara and I’m a gardener.”<\/p>\n In 2012<\/strong>, the big drought hit. \u00a0We had the city install a meter for garden water and ran drip irrigation to conserve it. \u00a0The garden doubled in size and we planted a whole range of those neat (and sometimes a little weird) vegetables we saw in the seed catalogs. \u00a0THAT is fun! \u00a0But what \u00a0to do with all those veggies?! \u00a0The new Athens Tx Farmer’s Market was kicking off. \u00a0New adventure!<\/p>\n 2013<\/strong> the garden doubled in size again to almost 2\/3 acre. \u00a0We needed a real bunny fence to protect the beans and lettuces. \u00a0 Planted blueberries to provide a wind break on the south side of the garden. \u00a0Upgraded drip irrigation with fertigation (liquid organic fertilizer added to the water as it drips). \u00a0 We had a wonderful year at market! \u00a0SO very grateful for the support and love of our customers (aka, new friends!) \u00a0We learned SO much – again – and were honored to be invited to share a bit with you all at the Master Gardener meetings and at Athens Organic Supply. We offered our veggies for the first time in a retail venue at Dana’s Health Food store in Athens.<\/p>\n Now it’s 2014<\/strong>. \u00a0The regular garden area has already grown to be as large as we can handle for now. \u00a0So this year, we’ve grown in a different direction:<\/p>\n If you are interested, there will be more about the greenhouse on the new Garden (b)Log when I get it kicked off in the next We still plan to be at the Farmer’s Market on First Monday weekends with unique heirloom veggies, will invite a few very tolerant friends to help us kick off a small CSA so we can learn the ins and outs of that, and will do our best to keep Dana’s stocked.<\/p>\n As always, our non-GMO veggies are grown with all natural (no chemical pesticides or herbicides EVER) techniques. \u00a0 While we are not certified organic, we always use those natural techniques to build healthy soil and grow healthy vegetables.<\/p>\n We sure are looking forward to the new year! \u00a0Thank you for sharing the ride with us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wow! \u00a0Last year went by so fast! \u00a0We had a lot going on, both in the garden and in the family. \u00a0This is what we were doing most of the time when we weren’t at…Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\nday<\/del>\u00a0(okay, maybe month or year…..) or so. When the water and heater are connected this weekend (we hope), we’ll start seedlings for the spring garden. We’ll be able to offer more in the way of fresh potted herbs and micro-greens – hopefully year-round. \u00a0We’ll be vermicomposting (composting with worms) to provide extra nutrients to the soil as well as refining our regular compost system. \u00a0Lots more to learn.<\/p>\n