When we decided to try and beat the rising cost of everything, a garden seemed the logical place to start - it's local (our land), it's convienent (right outside our backdoor) and it'll produce in direct proportion to our efforts (we thought). Now, we have relatives that have that magic touch, where everything they plant grows to almost freakish proportions; prying that secret out of them is a different matter; nothing is ever given in a straight forward manner, you're spoon fed information that has been steeped in local lore then encrypted.

So, our first planting was interrupted by neighbors that suggested that we till the soil until the soil was a powdery consistency, to aerate the soil; the next suggestion was that we need to amend the soil, because "nothings going to grow in this stuff"; next we were told we really need to get the soil ph, to know what will grow best; then we were told we need this pesticide for these species of pests and this other pesticide for that species of pests; I was beginning to wonder how people ever fed themselves before the advent of the grocery store.

We bought a book, with the idea that we could tackle this "gardening" thing using the imperical method to find out what would work. Now, I've been accused of being too methodical, at times, but, when you're asked to play 200 questions i.e. "what is a plant"; "what will the plant be used for"; "is it necessary to plant at all"; we decided to "chuck" the imperical method.

The "holistic method" which got our heads spinning; since it seemed, that now, we were concerned about everything else related to the plants (too much info. I'm sure this method is invalueable, but for beginners, it put us into shock). The obvious had escaped us, until now, why not simply do what someone else, that is sucessful, is doing; then sort out all the details as we were planting (O.J.T.). Finally we were on to something that worked, we did know someone who was a sucessful gardener and was willing to give "good advise" - an inlaw - I cannot divulge any more since I've been let into the "secret society of sucessful gardeners", kinda like the "masons".

Our garden went through several transformations, all on paper, thankfully, and we decided on container gardening, it solved many problems, but not all unfortunately. After the last freeze in May when our plants were just transplanted into the larger containers, all was well; until a week or so later when we found "no plants" in the containers and deer droppings everywhere, seems we got the plants out of the reach of some rodents and right at the serving height for deer.

This problem didn't go away until my fortuitous run in with my, now resident, outdoor cat; I don't know how she did it, I'm just thankful she did. So, now that we had a late start on the garden ,due to, I'll call it natual disaster, everything is going well again. Aside from things like: over watering, under watering, too much fertalizer, not enough fertilizer, which pestacide to use (which has been solved due to a change in attitude - more of a natural approach to pest control), and the numerous other things to keep track of... wasn't Sherlock Holms an ardent gardener or beekeeper?