Wyoming Summer, Gardening Lessons for Results, and the Pioneer Spirit

Wyoming Summer-Spring is here and it is a blistering 51 degree’s at the heralded locale near here. It is Summer-Spring because it is supposed to be summer in June, but it is really Spring weather patterns which make for cold and cool temps. But, really; the weather is hotter than that around 64 or so. The wind is coming out of the Northwest and with it brings a chill. Around here people are indeed asking “where is summer?” Well the answer is vague; weathermen who monitor the weather discuss the issue as being “part of a weather pattern”. It will be unsettled weather and with it we have had snow, rain, hail, tornado’s, and wind. Just to mention a few items this Summer Spring in Wyoming. I am used to the weather here but you can tell the differences in what things used to be and what they are now is changing.

For instance we have just weathered the worst winter in Wyoming in recent memory. A record breaker, and one that brought snow pack above all levels. Our water is fine, our snow is fine, and in places in June it is still getting snow from time to time. Welcome to Wyoming!

But in this I must admit that the one facet of this season I love is gardening. I enjoy getting in the garden, digging in the dirt, and preparing it for planting. This year everything is up and some is still sprouting. My Comfrey is doing great as is my Hesper’s perennials. My Hosta’s came up and along with them my Marigolds and Hartman’s giants are up.  I do like perennials as they save me time and work.  Like for instance my Raspberries that are growing shoots alongside my Asparagus. This year we should have some Raspberries and the best thing is both my Asparagus and Raspberries come up each year on their own. But also my Rhubarb is another one, plus varied herbs I have planted. In all there are many such regularly, yearly, plants that live, then hibernate in the winter, and come up again in the spring; all on their own. All I have to do is monitor them, water them, feed them, and keep them healthy from bugs and virus ect.  So right here I tell you the first thing I really learned over the years in gardening and growing stuff; “get some perennials ; plants like we have that will grow yearly on their own and do good”.  Some people opt for various fruit trees, while others like other  tree’s and flowers. But I want food growing, not a whole bunch of trees and flowers that I can’t eat.  Here I have lesson number two, “If you do plant anything, plant something that will be food for you and your family”!  But I have found and really I do like it; no I love it growing a garden and it is as a famed writer said “gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful, and sitting in the shade²”.

Simply put, perennials only have to be planted once and they will produce food for a lifetime. Whereas, garden vegetables (annuals), have to be replanted year after year from seed. And because of the natural life-cycle of perennials, they have the time to put down deeper and longer roots, which makes them able to get more nutrients, reach water deeper in the soil, and makes them less susceptible to seasonal variations in sunshine, rainfall, cold and heat than an annual plant³.

But this is also important, that is if you have worked your garden you know very well that they are not just made by sitting on your butt and watching it.  The caveat here is “you can hire someone to do it for you”! I don’t mind if you do this, it is nothing to me. As for me, I want to work the dirt, get the hands dirty, and even go barefoot and work it all. I get in touch with the real essence of what it means to “bring forth food by the sweat of your brow”.  But really here is the fun part because after the work is done, you can go and find that shade; sit down and enjoy a cold glass of fresh Ice Tea. This leads me to my third lesson I have learned in this regard, “if you work hard, then do the job and do it right, then go reward yourself”. For me, I enjoy sitting back; howbeit tired and nurse myself with that cool drink in the shade of my tree’s with a cool breeze blowing.  This is reward. Oh by the way did I tell you when I work out of doors I have my music on. I play my “classical Radio station which  plays stuff from Beethoven to Vivaldi to Operetta.” So in the process of building, preparing, nursing, and keeping my Wyoming garden going; I do so to the tune of Beethoven’s fifth symphony or his Moonlight Serenade, Vivaldi Spring, Grieg Morning, or any number of classics.

Wyoming Summer, Gardening Lessons for Results, and the Pioneer Spirit: The Garden

No kidding, my tomato plants last year got to 12 feet plus in height and had lots of tomato’s. All of which we canned, dehydrated, and ate fresh off the vine. My peppers did very well and it all of this, it was because they heard “classical music”. “Yeh, Right on that one!” Kidding here.  But I have found a way and am using it in the preparing of the ground and using my ongoing method of fertilizing plants that seem to work well here.  At the right is my very tall tomato vines and the bed for the raspberries, asparagus, rhubarb, and herbs next to the fence. As you can see, it is mightily overgrown. This year I moved the tomato plants a bit further away and planted more herbs in the bed.  But due to the winter weather and the storm that raised havoc with our Wyoming tree’s, I lost one major tree. It turned out to be a blessing because it allows more sun to hit the garden areas. This year things are growing very well, even in cool weather. Some trees however are devoid of some eighty to ninety percent of their limbs and leaves. This is sad, but in this area we had so many cottonwoods and elms that no one could keep up with them and they got very tall and big.  Indeed all over the area the storm trimmed many trees, killed many others, and removed tons and tons of limbs and leaves.

Wyoming Summer, Gardening Lessons for Results, and the Pioneer Spirit: Heritage

I also believe that in the role of things to do and occupations; farming, ranching, and planting a garden are all in the same venue here.  This goes back to my roots in Wyoming [but also my California roots which go back to early California days] where my pioneering grandparents walked a fine line between making it and survival. Times were tough and my mother grew up on the farm working at a very young age. For her and her family the kids were needed to help work and feed the family. From a dirt poor farmer who scraped and worked, my grandfather met all challenges with Grandma. They ended up having two more farms and did quite well for them. In the end, grandfather died while working on the farm in the summer time. He died doing what he loved. He and grandmother had been married for some fifty years or so. Grandma went on to sell the farm, move into town, and marry again.  This time a World war one vet she had known. He was a prolific gardener and one of the best I knew besides my own grandmother. They were married for over 25 years, then he died and my grandmother lived on to ninety two. WOW, What  a life Granny!

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden”

“Though an old man, I am but a young gardener”

“Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God⁴”

Wyoming Summer, Gardening Lessons for Results, and the Pioneer Spirit: That small piece of land!

Moreover in all this I garden for Survival. That is; I plant what we can plant in the space I have. I use the ground, pots, hanging planters, raised beds, and anything I can to put in soil and plant a seed. For me, I was too small to understand how my grandparents could garden and farm with such great results. If I had known better I would have paid more attention, but I was a city kid and my mom [worn out from the farm work as a kid] and my Dad whose own father had a ranch did not want to be farmers. Today I realize how lucky I was, but with age [I am 62] comes wisdom or so you think. I now reach into my past and in my family genes and photographs to grab the reality of raising your own food. This is my lesson number four, “plant your garden for survival, for food, and do so with good seeds, saving some for next years crop and don’t depend on the grocery store to feed you”!

Today we buy stuff as many Americans do in order to eat. We do not grow enough to feed us yearly. We have no land for animals to raise for eggs, butter, milk, cheese, and for meat!  But I am learning, reminding myself of my pioneer heritage and their ability to survive. In this we are survivors, and my friend you will need to be a survivor as well.  For me and my wife what Abraham Lincoln said so many years ago reflects the true pioneer spirit and what we would like to do.  Abraham Lincoln said “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”

Well, my friends; this ends my piece here as I must go move the water;

And my final lesson is “never give up, I had to learn from scratch, and am still learning; but I must push forward and succeed in this”

I hope this finds you well,

Shalom till next time;

The WatchmanSowsSeed¹

In the beginning God made Adam and Eve, he gave them a garden to keep. In the cool of the day he would come and walk in the garden and find man whom he had made; to fellowship with them in the cool of day in the garden!

I can think of no better place to find God, but in the cool of the day, amidst the green and fruitful garden; hearing the voice of God calling me!…The WatchmanSowsSeed  Dana G Smith

Gen 3:8  And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures” ~ Francis Bacon

“I think that if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a garden at the cool of the day” ~ F. Frankfort Moore, A Garden of Peace⁴

^{Some pic’s from this years 2014 garden planting:}

End notes: Wyoming Summer Gardening Tips for Results and a chance to Relax in the Shade

¹Wyoming Summer Gardening Tips for Results and a chance to Relax in the Shade

by WatchmanSowsSeed, Dana G Smith

Keywords: Wyoming, Summer, Gardening Tips for results, Pioneer Spirit, fruit, perennials, plant, harvest, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson

Words: 1920

²Gardens are not made quote, Rudyard Kipling; http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_gardening.html#QAMFLowqbHFqIS7q.99
³On perennials, http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-castle/articles/plant-your-own-secret-survival-garden/

⁴Thomas Jefferson quotes; http://selfsustainablelife.com/top-100-gardening-quotes.html

⁵WIBR/WARN Resource Pages:

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