Garden

For my 31st birthday (in December), I asked my folks for a garden. They've dabbled in gardening the last couple of years... well, really, Ryan has had his amazing garden at their house. They've given it the needed TLC and have therefore reaped the benefits of fresh veggies, etc. I decided this would be a great year to attempt a garden. I'm finally living where the sun shines. I'm not working. I'm not pregnant. And Owen loves to play in dirt.

 

 

My dad and Ry came in April, built the structure of the garden, and then filled it with dirt/manure.

Owen loved climbing in the back of Papa's truck to help!

Checking to make sure we got all of the dirt....

He did not leave my dad's side! New tools, lots of mud. What a happy 2 year old.

He also loves to climb in Papa's truck- which I might add, was purchased specially to fit O's car seat.

After we got all of the mud into the garden, O helped me till it.

And then we looked for earthworms.

In this bed, we have a variety of lettuce (mostly romaine), spinach, 1 zucchini plant, 1 bell pepper plant, and 2 tomato plants. Ryan grew the pepper and heirloom tomato plants from seeds. He has special lights in his basement... very fancy!

In this bed I have potatoes, onion, asparagus, and a few tomato plants.

            Oskee couldn't keep herself away from the manure in the soil, so Papa and Ryan came back to put a fence around it.

These are pictures from today. We've harvested a lot of lettuce. I'm not even sure how many salads we've had, and I've given some away, too. You can see the growth of the tomato and bell pepper plants, too.

 I had no idea the potato plants would get so out of control. I planted way too many, and I really need to rein in the leaves. They are a late season harvest as well as the potatoes. The tomatoes in this bed are growing well, too.

 

I see this growing season as my trial run. I'm sure this summer I'll learn lots of things about gardening:

• I've already learned that I planted waaay too many potatoes and just plants in general.
• Our first set of lettuce was a little bitter, and apparently that's from too much heat on the lettuce plants. Best to plant them earlier in the season, and they are ready to eat 21 days after planting. That's a nice turn around.
• I'm really grateful for rain- it makes it so much easier to garden!

 I'm sure I'll have many more nuggets and harvesting pictures as the summer progresses. I'm always happy to share the bounty, as well!