Succulent Vegetables

Let's just get something straight right off the bat. I am a "brown" thumb. Yep. I've tried over and over again to grow things, but they just end of dying. I either over water, under water, give them too much sun, or not enough.

I've heard over and over again about the benefits of alpaca compost (aren't you glad I called it that?). Most of the alpaca farmers I know, have vegetable gardens. My sister-in-law, Terri, has a HUGE garden. She is what I would call a "GREEN" thumb. (Notice I capitalized the word GREEN?) Everything she plants yields a bountiful harvest. I've watched year after year and wished I could have a garden even a fraction of the size of hers.



Well, this year I decided to make a go of it again. My neighbor, Jonie Coble, showed me a little garden she had started in one of her horse's water troughs. Hmmm... I thought. I could do that with some of the bath tubs I had out in our pasture. We had acquired three bathtubs some years ago and used them as water troughs when we were raising horses. So, I purchased some strawberry, yellow pepper, jalapeno pepper, squash, carrots, tomato, watermelon and cantaloupe seeds, as well as a packet called "Cut Flower Garden". Crazy right? Well, I had three bathtubs to fill! Then, my neighbor, Hal Camp,called me up and let me know that he had another bathtub for me to have for my garden. Seems he was remodeling his bathroom and needed to get rid of his old tub. BONUS! Now I had FOUR tubs!



Well, the seed packet labeled "celery" turned out to be zucchini and the packet labeled cantaloupe turned out to be yellow squash. How do they mess up on that??? Anyway, I filled each of the tubs up with alpaca compost. I planted each of the seeds (with a little help from my five year old son) and voila! Two months later and I have some AWESOME vegetables and fruit! Pictured is a basketful of our bounty! The zucchini and squash are growing like gang-busters! I only have ONE watermelon, but oh, am I happy! Wow, it feels great collecting fruits of my labor! I know that there are absolutely NO PESTICIDES whatsoever on them. They are fresh and delicious.



So, thanks for letting me share my garden with you. Oh yeah! Here are some pictures of my little flower garden, too. Isn't it pretty? The butterflies and bees seem to like it, too. Maybe I'll even cut some fresh flowers for my table tomorrow. What do you think?

Happy Trails!