Welcome to our Garden

We'd like to introduce you to our garden!

Our garden began as a large patch of grass... actually weeds with a little grass.

But then we tilled it up!

And sectioned it off into 4 rows with walking paths in between.

Seeing as we had such a large area to plant (25 x 100 ft) we planned out where to plant everything using the Mother Earth News Vegetable Garden Planner. It really helped us to plan out our area effectively and know exactly how much room we had for each variety of plant. It was a lifesaver!

Around the first weekend in April we planted cold weather vegetables like kale, lettuce, cabbage, brussels sprouts, carrots, peas, spinach, and parsnips. We have been planting different things every week or two since and are finally almost done planting!

For the first couple weeks we had to water everything by hand since we didn't have a sprinkler system set up yet... which was not very fun.

But then we finally got drip tape, which made our lives much easier! 

Drip tape is very similar to a regular drip system, but it is less expensive. There are little 1/4" slits along the entire line of drip tape where the water is able to escape. It works great!

This is the current state of our garden...

Since this area used to be grass and weeds we have been fighting both ever since we tilled it up. A lot of what you see is both grass and weeds... but don't be fooled because everything we have planted is actually doing quite well! We have to weed the garden quite a bit and as you can see, we tend to fall behind on weeding (since we also have many other things going on). However, we know that even though this gardening season might be incredibly frustrating, next year and every year after that will continue to get better and better as we persevere and keep fighting the good fight!

Side note - the covered spot on the right is tomatoes... they experienced some sun shock when we planted them outside so we have given them some temporary shade to help them recover.

All in all, we have a LOT planted... tomatillos, tomatoes, yellow onion, red onion, garlic, kale, bush beans, 3 kinds of potatoes, green cabbage, red cabbage, squash, zucchini, brussels sprouts, leeks, eggplant, radishes, spinach, romaine lettuce, mixed salad greens, broccoli, cauliflower, soybeans, cucumber, pickling cucumber, green peppers, red bell peppers, yellow peppers, orange peppers, purple peppers, jalapenos, banana peppers, anaheim peppers, serrano pepper, corn, peas, carrots, beets, parsnips, raspberries, gooseberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, and grapes. We hope to plant some more corn, pole beans, pumpkins, and strawberries this weekend.

We also have a small herb garden, which includes sweet basil, cilantro, tarragon, oregano, italian parsley, sage, thyme, dill, chocolate mint, spearmint, and rosemary.

We hope our garden does well so we can eat some delicious food... because nothing tastes better than fresh fruit and vegetables picked from your own backyard!