Oh the Joy, Time, and Expense of Gardening in Iowa.

This is the wagon I used to drag home my poor, pitiful plants. This mud/water slush is from their roots draining through the colander on the ride back to my house.






As you can see the leaves have turned purple. This is from my lack of adding phosphate to the soil.



My lone Echinecea plant, that I need to go pluck from the ground because not even this can survive the conditions in my bed.



My poor,poor rhubarb :'(

And this, my friends, is my bed.










Sludge close up.



Granted, I did dig those holes in the ground. The *idea* that I had was that I would dig out the soil that was in the bed, let it dry, then mix it with compost and manure. There is only about a foot of soil that the plants can actually push through. Underneath? There is no way a plant could penitrate that "dirt" (clay). I have some more pictures of what we did yesterday, dug a trench to drain the water and place a french drain in the middle of the bed.

But I can actually garden! And for the most part the garden I have in back of my house is doing well.



This is my spinach harvest. We have also gotten lots of kale and chard from the back.