Our Garden

When it comes to being thrifty and eating vegetables, your mind automatically goes to a garden or the farmers market. So this year, I set out to plant a garden. Now we have lived in our home for almost 3 years in October and this is the third attempt at a garden.

Our first garden was just a fly by the seat of our pants type of garden. We tilled up a good portion of the yard and just threw plants willy nilly. It was not very successful. It could have been because we forgot to water it. Yeah.

Anyways, last year I decided to get a little more serious about gardening and decided to read some books about it. My mother-in-law is a fabulous gardener and was kind enough to loan me some books. After much deliberation, we decided to do some square foot gardening. We were given some miscellaneous wood from my parents and built the beautiful boxes that you will see in the upcoming pictures.

I also made some make-shift trellises for the cucumbers and squash to grow up. I think I tried too many plants last year because we did okay, but not great. I think we spent more money on plants then we got vegetables.

This year I decided to go minimalistic. I was only going to plant the things that I knew I couldn't ruin, that gave us something last year and we definitely eat. I set out to Bachmans with the kiddos at Grandma's house helping her plant.

Here is what I got:
5 tomato plants, assorted kinds
3 pepper plants
1 cucumber plants, with 4 individual plants
1 squash plant, with 2 individual plants
1 egg plant plant (is that right?)
Total I spent was: 30.00

Earlier this week I bought a lettuce plant, 2 basil plants (mmmmm, margarita pizza!) and a rosemary plant.

I bribed my sister with dinner and she came over and we all weeded and got the ground good and ready to plant those babies. Isaac towered over us instantly claiming any worms that we dug up. Don't worry, I made him put them back. I know how good those suckers are for the garden.

Here are our lovely boxes that we made last year with all the plants sitting in their new homes. The pots are for carrots and radishes, the kiddos are planting those, we are just out of dirt right now.

Our yummy lettuce on the deck!

Our herb garden. I think something is eating my basil. I will have to look into that!

I am excited to see how this garden goes. I am hoping to get a lot of tomatoes and then convincing my mother-in-law to teach me how to can.

I am also hoping that the baby rabbit that was hiding in our yard will get the picture and never return. Hmmm.