Let's Play in the Dirt

Spring is here and in full swing…or maybe it’s already summer and we totally skipped spring this year!? It’s a hot one nonetheless, and for the gardening, it’s been great! No threat of freezing temperatures anywhere in sight.

We/I have wanted to build and grow a garden ever since we moved into our house about 2.5 years ago, but we just haven’t actually done it. That is, until this year! Back in October, I started researching and planning all of the delicious and nutritious foods we would plant (keep alive) and grow and eat and preserve. (These were great resources for me: Vegetable Garden Calendar & Vegetable Planting Guide both by UGA CES) I had squash, zucchini, bell pepper, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, beans, lettuce, spinach, corn and okra on the list. I had even printed out the 2012 calendar and added specific plant dates and estimated harvest dates for each variety of plant. Neal and I sat down and I asked him to realistically tell me if he thought I could handle it and make it worth our while to spend the money investing in this garden. Did I have too much of a variety? Could I manage it all and have a baby right in the middle of the harvest (sounds like a Little House episode!)? Would something I planted actually grow and survive since I can’t even keep a house plant alive for more than a month. Or a cactus, but that’s another sad, sad tale. We talked it all through, I showed him the “Master Plan” and we decided to scale back the variety a bit. So, after an afternoon of planning together, we were all ready to get the dirt and plant! This is what we settled on: Zucchini, Squash, Beans, Cucumber, Bell Pepper, Eggplant, Tomato, Spinach and Lettuce.

One trip to the hardware store, some wooden planks, braces, nails, etc later, we had these 10’x4’ boxes built and ready for some soil.

The soil is now unloaded and some of the seeds are planted. I’ve not planted everything all at once, because I don’t want a whole harvest of everything at one time. The plan (fingers crossed) is that things will harvest in a nice and steady stream so that we can eat what we want to, preserve what we need to, and I can try to keep some sanity during the process!

Our first plants have sprouted and I was SO excited to see that this dream is coming true! Organic, homegrown, healthy, nutritious, non-pesticide treated foods here we come!

Bush Beans

Spinach