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Last year I tried to grow some vegetables but failed miserably. The soil near the apartment is mostly clay, and hard and dry. I planted tomatoes and grape tomatoes, peppers, brussel sprouts, cabbage and cucumbers. All were bought as starts.
Though we did get maybe twenty cherry tomatoes, the other tomatoes barely survived until late September when a few of them started to produce. I brought one that was in a pot inside for the winter and it is now blooming again. About 10 tomatoes that were on it when it came inside actually ripened, so we got maybe 25 altogether, all late in the season.
We got about 8 peppers and two plants that were in the same pot are now producing again inside.
We got zero cucumbers, no cabbage grew large enough to be worth bending over to pick, and the few brussel sprouts were about the size of peanuts.
This year I decided to do something serious. Using a few truckloads of soil dumped by the county from the ditching work along the property, and a bunch of lousy old wood from a nearby barn that is being taken down, I built some terraces and filled them in with real soil. Here's how it looks so far.
Look carefully, just below the large rocks, and you'll see the first plants that Sandy has transplanted. Transplanting sounds so easy. Not here. She had to use a pick axe to get through the hard clay and the gravel nearest the barn. Then she carried the clay away and replaced it with soil. Finally the plants could be set in place. Some we had in pots brought from Indianapolis, some came from along the county road on our property where the ditch was cleaned out, and some from a neighbor's overgrown iris plots.
Inside I've started spinach and a few other plants. Next time we go to town I'll get some peas which can be planted outdoors now. The archway has some new grape cuttings at its bottom. Finally, when I clear a path to them in the barn, I'll pull out the dozens of other seed varfieties we've saved from plants we've grown, seen or eaten and see if we can get the entire hillside growing.
