Life is crazy with two babes, a full-time job, college classes, planning a wedding, Sunday night slow pitch softball league… what else?
Oh, a wonderful garden!
Reminisce with me… This time last year we were preparing to move to this house (our first time as homeowners!) and had tomatoes, jalapeños, and several other plants growing in pots. We dreamed of a garden in the earth and were excitedly making plans to prepare the garden that we now have!!
We made our dream a reality (in most parts, but not to say there hasn’t been stumbles along the way)! There are still plenty of ways we know we can improve (a lot of which require $$$), but I’m still so excited about what we’ve accomplished.
Here’s the layout:
Raised bed with lettuce & radishes; peas growing up a trellis cage; potted mint; bell peppers, tomatoes, jalapeños, green beans, corn, and carrots sown in the ground Baby lettuce 🥬 RadishesStrawberries 🍓 2 potato plants 🥔 Tomatoes 🍅 Carrots 🥕 Corn 🌽 , green beans, jalapeños 🌶 , & tomatoes 🍅 This year I am attempting to grow sunflowers 🌻!! I’m so excited 😆 🌻 Apple tree progress 🍏
We are so excited for the progress and I will update with more photos soon!!
Today marked the real start of planting for our 2022 garden. You may remember, I wrote about this last year– we had to plant all of our tomatoes and jalapeños in a pot since we were renting and couldn’t till our own true garden.
2021 actually brought us a pretty decent yield considering we grew everything in containers and kept them alive through the move into our new home.
But this year, we’re excited. We are making our plans to start a real garden sown outdoors since we finally own our own land. FINALLY we own a home and can do as we please, and a big part of who we want to become is becoming more self-sustained; which will be improved with the bearings of fresh, real food harvested from a garden less than 25 yards away.
We have big plans, but also understand that we are new to this ( and any advice is highly appreciated). We have plans for tomatoes, jalapeños, corn, bush beans, snap peas, onions, strawberries, cilantro, spinach, cucumbers, radishes, asparagus, carrots, mint, basil, and possibly more that I can’t think of right now. We also have an apple tree. I’d like to get some berry bushes and a couple more fruit trees planted this spring.
Now, if we actually get all of these to harvest? Who knows. We are new to this, so our expectations are in line with some disappointment but also some great fresh produce. I’m particularly interested in growing the spices and seasonings, and also hoping we can finally get some onion to harvest. We’ve failed with onions before, but I’d really like to venture into making homemade salsa, pickles, and spaghetti sauce!
Today I started the jalapeño and tomatoes seeds so that they can germinate indoors and eventually be transplanted out in the yard in 6-8 weeks.
Dylan has started with putting some stakes in the yard so that we can fence in the garden. The other night we woke around 3am to notice eight deer roaming our backyard. We watched them for a bit, as it was fun to watch them simply roam.
More to come on the garden front – we are so excited! I will update as the garden season progresses!
Like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Dylan and I tried our hand at gardening again this year. We planted everything in pots because we anticipated a move. Last week we finished up our move and this week we have plants that aren’t dead!
In fact, today we harvested over ten tomatoes from our plant and there are still plenty left to ripen! We are still waiting on the jalapenos to finish up before we can pick them, but there are a TON of peppers on our plants that will be ready here very soon!
Beautiful and red. And as fresh as it gets.
Ahh. It feels good.
We grew these plants from seeds and now we get to enjoy their nutrients.
Last year we planted a few tomato plants, a strawberry plant, and some onions. The strawberries and onions either drowned away or dried out. We had to plant everything in pots since we rent instead of owning our home. We were able to get a few smaller tomatoes, but the effort overall was a bust. We bought all of the plants from a nursery already germinated and ready to plant.
This year, we started tomatoes and jalapeños from seeds. We went back to the nursery and bought strawberries and onions again. And we also purchased a mint plant spontaneously on one of our WalMart runs. Well, I’m proud to announce that we’ve managed to keep all of them alive so far! This year we planted them in pots again since we weren’t sure when we’d be moving.
We’ve got three large tomato plants, two of them flowering beautifully. The other needs to catch up a bit in size.
We’ve also got some onions planted, but I’m not confident that we’ll get any produce from them. They are green on the stems in places still, but they’re starting to look wilted. I’m thinking they must grow better in the ground- something we’ll actually get to do with our garden once we OWN our home!
The jalapeño plants really sprouted out after the last rain. The plant is looking really full and strong. It’s even starting to flaunt some small white flowers that will soon be juicy green jalapeños. We grew these and the tomatoes from seeds this spring, so we’re so excited to seem them flourishing and producing!
The sweet mint plant is probably my favorite of the lot. It already smells so good and it just grows up and out like a genie. I don’t know why, but I just enjoy watching the growth of this beauty week by week.
So I’m hoping we are going to be more successful this year than we were last year! And then next year we can plant so much more variety, and actually in the ground, so this gardening thing is gonna be a summer hobby here before too long! It may not be too exciting to some, but we have found something new to entertain us, so we will take that where we can!
I wandered out to the garden and sat with my back against the fence. I could feel the warm sun beat down on my face, I closed my eyes and soaked in the rays with my head pointed upward.I should do this more often,I thought to myself. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes again.
What a beautiful life this is. I can sit here and feel the warm sun, enjoy the slow breeze, and fill my lungs with clean air. Too often I take for granted the beautiful easiness of nature. It’s slow and quiet, but will continue to exist whether I am taking the time to enjoy it or not. The river will continue to run whether or not its existence is acknowledged.
I looked over at the tree and noticed a trail of ants going up and down its bark. They work so well together, traveling in a line and gathering food for everyone to enjoy. I wish humans existed in this way more. We focus too much on ourselves and making sure that we are doing better than our neighbor. Why do humans flourish in the idea that life is a competition between us and those we are surrounded by?
I’ve never understood how more people in this world don’t care about the well-being of everyone collectively.
There is one earth.
And we all share it.
The ants keep working and I keep watching in admiration.
Between the Lens 