Where am I and What am I doing here?

As I said in my last post, I'm not on my farm yet due to circumstances that I regrettably allowed to happen.

In a nutshell, in September 2013 I had dinner with a friend from the hobby club I'm in and was led astray by his charms.  He was looking for a travel companion and he thought I might be interested.  I've always wanted to travel, so enticed by this opportunity and taken in by his cleverness, I retired from my job with the City in February 2014, over a year sooner than I had planned. We spent more than half of 2014 traveling around the U.S. and Europe.  We traveled by train to New Orleans, then on up to Washington, D.C. and back.  We RV'd up to Ohio and then through the Midwest and eventually down to the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque NM.  During the two trips to Europe we covered Germany, France, Holland, the Czech Republic, and Austria.  I've seen the Constitution of the United States and the flag that flew at Fort McHenry and inspired our National Anthem. I saw a nighttime mass ascension of hundreds of hot air balloons in all kinds of crazy shapes, including Elvis and Darth Vader.  I've seen what's left of the Berlin Wall and walked the Normandy Beaches.  I saw a Guttenberg Bible, fields of tulips at the Keukenhof Gardens, Krivoklat Castle near Prague, and Lipizzaner horses dancing.  It was an amazing experience and I've got some wonderful memories, but eventually I began to miss being home.  And my dream of owning and living on a farm began to creep back into my consciousness.   

Once I got myself back home I began to realize the consequences of my choices.  Retiring early resulted in a smaller retirement annuity so I had to go back to work.  Add in the credit card balance I ran up purchasing all those souvenirs I couldn't resist, and I may have to work another three years just to get where I was two years ago and I have no one to blame..... except myself.  But, what's done is done and what I need to do now is just move on and be stronger.

Since I didn't travel in 2015, other than to a family reunion in Charleston, SC in May, I was able to get a small veggie garden started.  I resurrected a little 4'x7' raised bed garden that I put together in 2013 and, with the help of my grandson, we expanded it to a 6'x7' bed and planted a couple tomato plants, two cucumber plants and six various pepper plants.  The tomatoes took over the whole bed, almost shading out the peppers and cucumbers.  I know that there are different fruiting types of tomatoes (globe, roma, beefsteaks, and cherry, for example), and now I know that there are different vine types of tomato plants, too.  Determinate and indeterminate.  Determinate varieties tend to produce all of their fruits at one time and have somewhat more compact bushes.  Indeterminate varieties produce all season long and, as in my case, they grow and grow and grow and will take over a small bed if allowed. 

 

 

What a great learning experience this turned out to be!  I want tomatoes in my garden this year and since I prefer not to dedicate my entire garden to tomatoes, I now know that determinate tomatoes will work better for me, and if I succession plant them (start 2-3 plants every 4-6 weeks) I can still have tomatoes all season. 

Oh, remember the pepper plants that got shaded out by the tomatoes?  Once I pulled out the tomato plants in late October to make room for the cabbages, the peppers came back to life. 

 

In my next post I'll write about my spring garden which will comprise four beds total - the original in my back yard and three new ones in the front yard.

'Til then, never give up, never surrender, and may all your dreams come true.