Starting the Garden

We decided to plant a vegetable garden this year. We’ve had great success with a herb garden in self-watering containers in the side yard near the kitchen. I love being able to go out and snip basil, parsley, oregano, sage, and chives. This year we’re planting three raised beds with lots of our favorites: tomatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant, zucchini, beans, carrots… I plan to document the effort on the blog so you’ll get to share in our successes and failures. We’re working from a book we found at my Mom’s over Christmas: Square Foot Gardening. It’s hard to imagine plants growing in this dreary weather, but we tried to situate the beds in a place that will get enough sun. We’ll see.

We’re hoping that doing the garden in beds and in miniature (at least compared to the row gardens we raised when I was a kid) will mean we can maintain it by working a little bit each weekend. In addition to leveling the ground (a little) and building beds and cages, this weekend’s work was making lists and ordering seeds. As soon as they get here, I’ll be starting some seeds (for cool weather plants like lettuce, broccoli, and cabbage. My planning centers around the Spring Week when we are likely to be past any frost. I’m using a handy online source with information on average first and last frost dates. Click here to find out when you’ll be frost free.