Our First Garden

I've wanted a garden for years and finally the timing was right. We started falling in love with fresh from the garden vegtables last year after tending our neighbors garden for two weeks while they went to Florida. We also saw the joy Luke got from picking the tomatoes. We figured now was a perfect time to give gardening a shot! I did a lot of reading and decided the Square Foot Garden method seemed to be most kind to beginners. Todd still has a very "half cup empty" outlook on this whole garden thing, so I'm really hoping we get some beautiful produce from it!

Here is our three raised beds. Two on the ends are 4'x4' and the one in the middle is 3'x6'. Todd made them from composite decking leftover from our deck project last fall. They turned out great! And the grids were made from the roping we used to measure of the deck as well, so another free item w had around the house! I ordered most of our seeds from Seed Saver Exchange, but I must admit I never got around to starting seeds indoors. Being pregnant with #3 has me totally worn out. So I did have to buy a few seedlings from the local garden center, but all in all, we're still on plan.


Bed #1 on May 1st. This bed is planted with Amish snap peas, strawberries, Longfellow cucumbers, spinach and lettuce. I also have a border of dill and oregano by the cucumber, thyme by the strawberries, and marigolds by the peas. These are supposed to naturally ward off harmful bugs and disease.



Bed #2 is now a disaster and needs to be replanted....hence the reason I'm using photos from May 1st! This bed contained sweet onions, red onions, shallots, garlic, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower. There is a border of oregano around the cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli, a dill border by the onions and broccoli, and rosemary by the cauliflower. Problem? I got a little cocky. Our neighbors have had gardens for years and had no problem with animals eating the seedlings. So, I figured why go to the extra effort, it'll be fine! Wrong! Sometime between Friday and Saturday, a rabbit ate all the broccoli/cauliflower/cabbage! Some of it is totally gone, some is just the stems eaten all the way to the soil. Not even sure if it's worth replanting these at this point with the temperatures getting warmer. But I can tell you....chicken wire is being wrapped around every single bed this week! I'm not opening a buffet line for nature!



Bed #3 still needs to be finished, but will eventually be planeted with carrots, lettuce, golden zuchinni, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, empress beans, Black Beauty eggplant, and more garlic. This bed also has a border of marigolds by the eggplant.

We still have a lot to do not only for our vegtable garden but also the gardening for all my flowers around the house, so this weeks to do list is rather long. I hope my energy returns as I cruise into second trimester towards the end of this week.

TO DO:
-put chicken wire around all beds
-make trellis out of cow panel or cement rebar for peas, beans, and cucumber
-set up trelis along house for pumpkins, melons, and more zuchinni
-drill holes in galvanized tubs/rubbermaid tub/strawberry buckets for drainage
-finish planting in bed #3, containers, strawberry bucket, potatoes in rubbermaid tub and along house
-put flowers in planters and hanging baskets around the house (thankfully I bought these all over the weekend, just need to plant them!)