Okay so I've really been slacking on the gardening posts... Sorry, have been crazy busy with, well, planting the garden, watering the garden, yard work, house work, etc. #adultproblems
So, quick recap to get everyone up to speed, we planted the garden last weekend (one week before Memorial Day, eek!). And then, we got a frost warning, so I had to throw some sheets over everything to keep my plant babies safe!
It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! I must say though, we had lots of help :) Here's what we did:
Our neighbors let us borrow their rototiller, and 1 week before planting, we tilled up our plot. We got as much grass out as we could with a shovel, then tilled it up REALLY well and picked out as many rocks as we could. This pic below is why I keep ZB around. To till.
I bought some seeds at Wal Mart, and I went to a local nursery to get some starter plants! Just look at this place. Is this heaven?
The day of planting, we tilled in some bagged topsoil and humus I got at Tractor Supply to supplement the soil a bit. Since we didn't do any soil testing, we're really just flying blind here. HOWEVER, there's a corn field in our back yard and our neighbor's garden does really well, so I'm moving forward with the assumption that we have decent soil!
Now time for planting!
FOR SEEDS: We tied two sticks together with a piece of string at least as long as the width of our garden. We used this as a guide for planting our seeds in nice straight rows!
- Row 1: Lettuce (1/2 mixed greens, 1/2 bibb)
- Row 2: 1/2 radishes, 1/2 green onions
- Row 3: green onions (ZB insists he loves them and will eat all of them)
- Row 5: 1/2 green beans, 1/2 yellow seeds
Our first garden!!
FOR STARTER PLANTS: We just threw these guys in the ground and made sure to give them enough space!
- Row 4: 4 broccoli plants
- Row 6: 5 cabbage plants
- Row 7: 2 bell pepper plants, 4 banana pepper plants
- Row 8: 4 jalapeno plants
- Row 9: 3 tomato plants
- Row 10: 1 mound with cucumbers, 1 mound with zucchini, tomato plant in the middle
Look at these little babies from the nursery!
We finished it off with a good soaking with the hose and constructed a rough fence, (I mean pretty rough) out of 4 posts and some chicken wire. Those damn rabbits best stay away! We own a pellet gun, so... Oh, and we found an owl statue in our garage when we moved in, so we hung him on a pole as our garden guardian.
Check out that fence! And our guardian owl of course.
Now for some TIPS that I got from various people:
- Don't plant your hot peppers near any tomatoes or cucumbers or they will be spicy! Unfortunately, I didn't have the patience to plan this out appropriately. Time will tell if I end up with spicy cucumbers and tomatoes!
- When planting tomato plants, wrap a strip of wet newspaper around the base. Supposed to help with bugs I think?
- Plant some marigolds in or around your garden to keep rabbits away!
- Put newspaper in between your rows. Top with grass clippings. It will act as mulch and keep the weeds down. Will also keep your shoes from getting all muddy! Too bad when it dries it blows all over your yard :/
That's it for now folks! Quick update. After 1 week and 2 days, radishes, lettuce, and green beans are already popping up! There's also a baby little tomato on one of the plants.
NEXT POST: I'll tell you about the plants on my deck AND my strawberry patch!