Ok, before I say anything I have to admit my garden is pretty small. Ok, it is really small. But I still get a pretty good crop each year. I grow carrots, strawberries, watermelon, beans, peas, turnips, and I have a grape vine. I guess I should not even really list watermelons. I love watermelons, but I have never got one. I guess they really don't grow good here. I live in Indiana so the climate might not be right for them here. Because I have always tried. Pumpkins also don't grow well here. I have grown sun flowers to. I like watching things I plant grow. For such a small garden I really have built it up alot. Every year I add something new to it. Last year I built it up. I lined it with logs and raised it. Really it helped out a lot. Water now goes around it. Before it would flood and I would lose some of my seeds when it rained. Also I put a wire fence around it. Rabbits were eating my plants so I had to stop them somehow. It seemed to work. But now birds are eating them to. I know rabbits used to be back there because I caught one one time. Luckily I have a grandpa that knows every thing about every plant. He helps me out a lot. He has some of the best tools. He has one of those machines that digs up the dirt and chops it up. I just go at it. I like the work. It keeps me in shape for at least spring. I get a shovel and dig it all up by hand. I now get to work over at my Aunt's house to. So I have a lot of space to work with. I have many plants over there. It is a big garden. So I have enough space to plant what ever I want now.
Strawberries are my most favorite fruit. So I guess that is why over half of my garden is all strawberries. My grandpa has taught me alot about them lately. Did you know at the end of the growing season you should cut the tops of the plants off so there is only about an inch left? The leaves will grow back thicker and the plants will grow better and will be more likely to make it through the winter. Then in December you should cover them with straw. When the weather gets warmer you should take some of the straw off and move the rest around the bottoms of the plants and leave the leaves out and open to the sunlight. Last year I had a bad problem with slugs. Sometimes when I would pick a strawberry it would have a slug on it. It turns out my garden was full of them. So I learned everything I could about them and so did my grandpa. We found out that they like dark shaded areas. Which that part of my garden was pretty dark most of the time. To get rid of them we tried many things. My grandpa also had them at his garden. He tried poison. I was to afraid to use that. It did not work anyways. We found out that the best way to get rid of them is to put a board down and leave it there in your garden for a couple of days. Then lift up the board some day and look at them. Most likely they all crawled under the board. Then you can kill them or move them some where else. If you have a problem with killing the slimy things. Or another good way to get rid of them is to put out a lid in your garden full of beer. Strange, but true. They love beer. Something about it attracts them to it. They will go in it and then die. Trust me, I tried it and it really works.
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