Hyrum Garden

Connie and Buffie

This is the best view I have found of our garden.  The first year we moved in, my father, with everyone's help, put in a culvert from the irrigation ditch to the garden which was behind our house.  Then there was a large ditch that ran the length of our back yard and was the start of the ditch. Even when the water wasn't running, there was usually just a bit of water in the culvert, which attracted the most interesting water bugs.
When we moved in there were a couple old plum trees, which we kept and tended until they started producing again.  However every year my dad would plant another fruit tree or raspberries and strawberries which would produce year to year.
Hyrum is built on a delta of the old Lake Bonneville.  As such our garden had more than its share of rocks.  We spent every spring raking and picking rocks getting the garden ready for the soil to be turned. 
Some years my dad would hire a plow to come in, but most years we just turned the soil with our roto-tiller.  It use to shake and shake, but it would get the job done.  It had attachments to make the rows, but usually we made the original row with a hoe.  We would place a string to make sure the line stayed straight.  Dad said a straight line was evidence of a good farmer.  After when we ran the tiller through the rows during the summer to keep the furrow deep, but also to weed.  However this was always weeding to do on the hill between the furrows.  My dad use to assign so many rows for us to do while he was at work.
Irrigating was always fun, as you had to make sure every thing got watered, and the water went where it should.  We would have turns, and sometimes the turn was in the middle of the night.  The water would flow through our garden, and then be able to water the gardens of the duplexes behind our house if anyone had cared to plant a garden.
The result of all this is we had a very nice garden.  Not only did we have the orchard, but also vegetables.  We always had potatoes, corn, peas, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce etc.  We didn't have much success with cantaloupe or melons.