Not very romantic rural life

Last year when I was looking at houses, I fell in love with this house with a balcony at first sight. The imagination was so beautiful at that time - I wanted to plant vegetables, have BBQs, and live a rural life in the city center.

But things obviously didn't go as smoothly. Personal experience tells me that rural idyll requires a lot of time and a large amount of water resources.

Preparation

The original flowerbed has been abandoned for many years, mostly occupied by spider plants. So the first step is to clear the land.

We intermittently cleared the weeds and turned the soil. Fortunately, it was winter and plant growth was stagnant, so there was nothing else to worry about.

I also bought a compost bin and EM microorganisms, and made several bins of compost. The effect was not bad, a large pile of vegetable leaves and fruits picked up from the market eventually turned into black soil with no discernible source.

As the weather warms up, I bought a variety of vegetable and fruit seeds to start seedlings. After germination, I will plant them in the soil.

At this time, I think I found a major problem with the garden.

The major problem

The major problem is the soil. I think the soil here may have been dug up when the house was built. The soil itself is clay, which is difficult to infiltrate and retain water. It stops seeping after watering a little bit, but the soil becomes dry and hard again after the sun shines on it the next day.

A bigger issue is the orientation. My house faces northeast, so only a small amount of sunlight shines on it before noon. The area near the outer wall doesn't get sunlight all day due to the surrounding walls. As a result, whatever is planted here doesn't thrive, and all newly planted plants show signs of stunted growth, malnutrition, and premature aging.

Flowers

Excluding these vegetables, there are some tall, long-standing flowers in the garden. They bloom profusely in the spring, attracting bees continuously every day.

There is also a small mulberry tree and several small loquat trees. In early summer, a batch of mulberries was harvested, which were quite sweet.

Vegetables

By a flower bed on the other side that can get more sunlight, I also harvested some vegetables.

The first batch harvested was potatoes. After returning home for half a month during the Spring Festival, I found several potatoes in the kitchen, all sprouted. So I planted them, without expecting any harvest. I don't know if they had been dormant in the soil for a month or longer, these potatoes suddenly sprouted from the soil and grew rapidly. However, not long after, for some reason lacking nutrients in the soil, the potato leaves started to turn yellow. When dug up, the potatoes were only this small, and tasted no different from the ones bought.

The second batch harvested is spinach and cilantro. This kind of leafy vegetable does grow really quickly, as long as there is enough sunlight and water, under normal circumstances, it is impossible to consume all of it.

After harvesting the spinach, I planted tomatoes and chili peppers again.

I have to say that this batch of tomatoes has very good quality, they are genuine sandy tomatoes. Unfortunately, in the late stage of growth, they all started to show symptoms of wilting leaves, and the red spider mites also began to proliferate, resulting in a much lower yield.

The quality of the chili is also good, and no nutritional deficiencies or pests and diseases have been found.

In addition, I also had a few barbecues on the terrace. The summer was too hot, and there were too many poisonous mosquitoes, so I stopped barbecuing.

Feelings

The biggest feeling is that even if it's just a vegetable garden for yourself, it also requires a lot of time and effort. The preparation and fertilization before planting, irrigation during growth, constant attention to nutrition, pests, and weeds, each aspect is a big challenge.

As for water, Chengdu has had several good rains recently. June is very hot, and there have been few rains. I have to water about 40-50 liters of water every day. If the vegetable garden is larger in scale, the amount of water used is unimaginable.

After these experiences, I no longer have an obsession with whether the next house has a garden, maybe planting vegetables in flower pots is a better choice, easy to manage, and less water needed.