How Does Your Garden Grow?

I confess! I am a complete and utter newbie when it comes to gardening. I grew up as an Army brat so we were constantly on the move. I didn't live in the same place for longer than a year until I was in high school. I do, however, remember my grandparents having a beautiful garden. I can remember going there to pick corn and peas and green beans and helping my grandmother prepare them for dinner or for canning. It was an important part of their life and they helped me understand at a very young age just how important having a garden is. My problem is that I have a tendency to kill house plants, but I really want to have some fresh veggies that I grew myself.

With that being said, I decided this would be the year that I really dig in my heels and give gardening the old college try. I'm fortunate in that my backyard has full sun for most of the day and I have a nice flat area to use. I'm not so fortunate in that I live in the South and have a backyard full of red clay dirt. No matter what though, I was going to give this a try. Here's the play-by-play so far:

In early March I decided I would try starting seeds indoors. I mean, how hard could it be, really? You buy the starter kits, wet down the little peat moss pods, poke the seeds in, and wait. Well, apparently it's not as I thought because even though my seeds sprouted, they weren't getting solid stems and then I wasn't being so good at hardening them off outside. (That's going to take some learning!) My next decision was to get the land ready and pick up some seedlings at a nearby farmers market.

April 7 - I enlisted the help of a friend with her tiller to get the ground set for planting. It's a not a particularly huge plot so it didn't take too long to get the ground broken - turning in the topsoil however, is another story! But the final product looks good enough to start planting!

Garden Plot (w/Gabby)

Garden Plot 2 (w/Gabby)

April 29 - The next step was to get some plants so off we went to the farmers market. I picked up tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, peppers, jalapenos, and a few different herbs. I also planted some onion seeds and put in a row of marigolds because I've read they're supposed to help with bugs. Then off I went to a nearby garden center for some garden soil and started digging holes. Everything is looking good so far! (For fear of any possible cross pollination, I planted the jalapenos in a pot on the porch so they aren't in the pictures. I'd hate to have jalapeno flavored tomatoes!)

First Plants

Herbs - Greek Basil, Oregano, Dill, Cilantro, and Dark Opal Basil

Onion seeds

Tomatoes - heirloom beefsteak, 2 types of cherry, and roma

May 7 - Now the fun part. Watching the garden grown. Pulling weeds. Watching the garden grow. And so on. A week later I took a few shots since everything was already starting to show substantial growth.

The garden in one week

Cucumbers - Straight Eight (I think!) and Pickling along with zucchini and squash in the back

Tomatoes

At this point, my garden is about 6 weeks into growing and so far so good. I picked 4 cucumbers yesterday and we had them with dinner. They were nice and crunchy and oh so fresh tasting! I think I may have to build something for the cucumbers to vine on before they take over the whole plot. Someone at work suggested getting some bamboo and building teepee with garden twine. I may try to do that sometime next week if I have the time.

May 29 Garden View 1

May 29 Garden View 2

May 29 - Crazy Cucumbers!

May 29 - Tomatoes

I know that I've got a lot of learning to go and that I've probably not done several things right (like starting the cucumbers on a trellis to start). There is a lot of season yet to go this year so I'll keep updating! Hopefully we'll be bringing in some great homegrown veggies this year and maybe even can some homemade salsa.