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Being unable to keep up with a large garden anymore, I laid my latest brainstorm on our landscaper, 22-year old Caden. "Caden," I said. "Tear out Buddy’s dog pen that is right outside our kitchen door--we don’t need it now that Buddy’s in puppy heaven--and build us a raised garden."
"What kind of raised garden do you want, Curtis, on the ground or on legs?" he asked.
"Build it on the ground, out of railroad ties," I told him. "Two ties long, one tie wide, and three ties high. Fill it with black dirt. Try to get old used railroad ties, where the creosote is about gone and, to be on the safe side, better line the bed with plastic."
"Gotcha, Curtis."
It was only after Caden had the ties, and was beginning to set the bed up, that I got my second brainstorm, like lightning striking twice. "Caden," I said. "Could you notch those ties like Lincoln Logs, and put them together like a log cabin?"
Caden looked at me for a bit, like he was trying to decide whether to quit, or ask for a raise. But a smile replaced his frown. "I can do that, Curtis. But I might need one of Ginnie’s meatloaf dinners."
And he did do it. He stayed up all one night right outside our kitchen door (keeping us awake), burned up three chain saw blades, did a lot of cussing and ate a platter of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and apple pie. But he got’r done by golly. The only thing he said was, "Don’t tell anyone I notch railroad ties."
Next came the dirt. Caden had a dump truck full of pond-bottom soil delivered. It looked like clay, and turned hard as a rock. I thought, "Nothing’s going to grow in that."
But we planted four tomato plants, four peppers, Blue Lake pole beans, two kinds of cucumbers, onions, radishes, a couple kinds of lettuce, a few herbs and Ginnie insisted on one sunflower plant right in the middle of the bed to keep an eye on things.
Contrary to my doubts about that rock-hard pond-bottom dirt not being able to produce, our garden exploded. And it was right outside our kitchen door where we could see it from the sink window, and just step out to water it and harvest produce. That Iowa pond-bottom dirt had to be as rich as Mississippi silt.
Gosh did we harvest, like kids in a watermelon patch. The four tomato plants bushed out taller than our heads, and spilled over the sides of the raised bed like Niagara Falls. The pole beans climbed like it was Jacob’s Ladder, and produced so many beans we gave a lot away. And the cucumbers, man-oh-man. Ginnie had ordered a simple tent of net for them to climb. Not only did they climb, but they crushed the puny netting, and took over the raised bed, and a good chunk of yard. We had cucumbers growing in with the pole beans and climbing the tomato plants, all reachable without bending over. And what’s a garden without a snake--a four-foot long bull snake to scare the beejeebies out of Ginnie?
We mainly forgot about the onions and radishes, lettuce, herbs and peppers because they were buried in a jungle of vines. The one sunflower plant did not appear, and we forgot about it also. Then one day, there she was, smiling in the sunshine, looking over the produce like it was her children. Ginnie was so happy.
We had such a nice experience with our raised garden and, having learned from our mistakes this year, we will have an even better raised garden next year. I want to call it our Garden of Eden but, on second thought, Garden of Caden is more fitting. When he mows the grass, he is careful not to run over the cucumber and tomato vines.
In our old garden space, Caden is planning on building a replica of Stonehenge, outta railroad ties, of course.
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Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526 or email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com. Curt is available for public speaking.