Gardening Basics

This year, our second year in the new house, Joe and I built some planter boxes in our back yard.  We wanted to have a garden like we had at the old house, so we replicated the boxes exactly.  But it turns out this house has something the other one didn't: SUNLIGHT!  Did you know sunlight is really critical to the health of your garden?  Yeah, I know.  My mind was blown, too.

This was our garden at the old house, in August 2012.  We got a ton of zucchini, quite a few cucumbers, and some beans.  Not too shabby, but this backyard really didn't get much sunlight.  I'd estimate we got 4-6 hours on average of really good light per day.  And the average was probably closer to the 4-hour side of my estimate.  I do remember being shocked at how big our zucchini plants were and how much they produced.  But that was nothing compared to this new garden.

This year we scoped out the new yard and chose a location that seemed like it got the most amount of daylight.  We put in our beds, got two truckloads of a planting mix and hoped for the best.

The first things we planted were tomatoes, one pumpkin plant, three strawberry plants, and lettuce and carrots from seed.  These pics were from May 7.

 On May 27, a mole moved into the yard, and I was afraid all would be lost.

But the very next day, May 28, we harvested our first bowl of lettuce.  It was delicious, and we've used it since to make some nice salads, including the cobb below.

(Not that you can even see the lettuce under all that other good stuff, but I swear it's there!  PS: I also made those rolls.  Pretty nice, huh?)

By June 11 the garden was looking like this.  You can see the tomatoes have grown quite a bit, and the zucchini plant in the corner now has some company -- some pumpkin plants we started from seed.

Here's a slightly better view on June 18.

By June 24, we were eating carrots!  In fact, the kids ate carrots for breakfast for weeks because they just couldn't resist them when we'd go out to water in the morning.

By the end of June, the pumpkins were big enough that they needed somewhere to go, so we followed this tutorial and the advice of our gardening buddy Chad to build this trellis.

July 2: My mom is visiting, and we notice that all the tiny baby pumpkins are shriveling and falling off the vine.  We call Chad, who tells us we need to do some hand-pollination.  Mom and I do the business, and the very next morning, we see this.  Haha!

By July 8 the pumpkins are making their way up the trellis, and we've installed a second trellis for the one original pumpkin start and a few cucumbers we did from seed.  The bees by this point seem to be doing lots of pollination.

Skip ahead to present day.  The tomatoes are enormous, and we're now pulling a few ripe ones off daily.  We have eight different heirloom varieties, all of which we bought during Desmond's preschool's plant sale.

The pumpkins have all grown to the top of their trellises, and we've created a pumpkin arbor of sorts, using string to connect the two trellises at the top.

 
The climbing French beans have reached the top of their trellis, too, so I'm trying to get them to follow a string up to the pumpkin trellis -- just to give them somewhere to go.

We have some nice kale going, also started from seed.

 We've eaten all the carrots, so we've started seedlings for beets, brussels sprouts and bok choy.

Here's an inventory of what we have growing:

Pumpkins
Tomatoes
Beets
Bok choy
Lettuce
Zucchini
Climbing French beans
Cucumbers
Green onions
Onions
Oregano
Chives
Rosemary
Thyme
Sage
Mint
Strawberries
Sunflowers
Parsley
Blueberries

The only thing that hasn't done well was radishes -- they all bolted.  I think that was a product of late planting/too much sun.  We'll try again later this summer.

And here are some pics of Desmond posing with the garden this afternoon.

Can you see what a difference some sunlight makes?  Just compare the tomato plants alone.  I think I got maybe 3 usable tomatoes from my 2012 garden, and this year I'm pulling that many off daily.  I can't believe this garden.  It has exceeded my expectations so many times over.  Hooray for gardening!