Enjoying my garden!

A new adventure I began this year is gardening. I mean, really gardening. My husband used to do a little here and there in previous years, but, well, let's just say it needed a woman's touch.

I asked my buds on Facebook what I should do to go about starting a decent garden, and many folks suggested I check out this book: Square Foot Gardening.

I really liked what I read! However, I don't buy a book unless I really need it, and I knew that I didn't want to read the whole thing. Another Facebook buddy led me to this site: My Square Foot Garden. I signed up for their free e-course and planted according to her schedule. None of my veggies have been done at the same time, though, and I thought that was why I was supposed to plant according to her schedule...? Maybe I am forgetting something. No big deal, though. It's been fun having different veggies ready at different times.

My sweet hubby made some boxes out of supplies at Lowe's, and put a tarp-like substance on the bottom. Too bad I didn't take pics of that step. Gosh, you know what I just remembered? We were AT Lowe's picking out supplies when I got the first phone call on my cell phone about Joshua! Awww...

I bought heirloom seeds online (I can't remember where!). Those were surprisingly inexpensive.

This year I planted: Peppers (green and hot), corn, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini (just for zucchini bread -- I can't stand zucchini!), onions (I don't think they made it), broccoli (didn't make it), strawberries, tomatoes, and cantaloup.

I didn't plant as much as I should have, but I wanted to start kinda small and not be overwhelmed, especially since we just adopted Josh just a few months ago and I don't have much spare time. ;o)

This has really been fun! The first thing we "harvested" was strawberries. Yumzy! I am hoping next year to have enough so that I won't even have to go strawberry picking anywhere else. :o) Next, the peas came in. Yum! We got about two meal's worth (as a side dish, of course) out of our little harvest. I will definitely plant more of THOSE next year. Next, was the green beans. Very yummy, but again, much more to be planted next year. I just got my first zucchini yesterday, and made a loaf of zucchini bread (it was gobbled up quick at dinner!). I'm looking forward to more growing. The cucumbers are getting bigger. I might be able to pick one of those in a week or so. I have some tomatoes growing, and one is almost ready to pick! No peppers yet, but the plants are still doing well.

I made a mistake at the beginning of my gardening. I thought that I really had to water everything each day. Oops! I have memories of my mom watering and watering our garden in Plymouth, Michigan. I think it retarded the plant's growth and even drowned some of the plants (broccoli, onions). I stopped doing that, and only watered when we had a dry spell. The plants liked that and started growing more.