This was our first try at a garden. We bought our home in October of 2011 and have been working on the entire thing ever since! The entire yard needed to be replaced and when we first started all the planning, I made sure we had room for a garden plot. Here's a quick look at our garden progression:
Step 1: Build the fence.
Step 2: Rip out the old yard [patch of weeds, ha] and use LOTS of mint hay compost. [fun tidbit: my 8-year-old was MORTIFIED by this step. Apparently mint hay compost smells really bad, even when "there isn't cow poop in it, MOM."]
So far... just dirt and compost. Here's Hubbs working on the framing for our deck. After we finished the framing and the garden had been planted, we planted the grass seed. Poor garden had to fend for itself for a little bit while the grass grew, lol.
My tiller! Small but strong! I used her to mix up my plot before planting.
And finally! Step 3 [kinda]: The baby garden! And baby grass!
This rapidly turned into Step 4: HUGE garden! Excuse the horrible photo quality. This was taken by my 6-year-old with my iPod on a VERY bright evening. LOOK! CORN! WE ATE IT! My mom has tried to grow corn for years. It never works. Today my stalks are over 6 feet.
This sort of shows everything we planted. I tried to do a variety of things but still make it so we would be able to eat, and enjoy, a harvest - if we got one! I was worried we wouldn't get much but we were lucky! The slugs ate my radishes, green leaf lettuce, and chard so they all died shortly after this was taken.
Second to tomatoes in harvest this year were the pickling cucumbers! I made pickles for the first time this year, SO yummy!
Coolest thing in the garden this year? The fact that my squash leaves were BIGGER THAN MY HEAD! I was so stoked to see how well they did.
And lastly, two of my garden helpers.
Who mostly just ate my strawberries (in a different area, not in the plot) and my green beans. Good thing they're cute...
We will definitely be giving this a shot next year too! Thanks for the entry and excited to see some more posts on gardens!
