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| we (aka Nathan) built 4 raised beds from cedar fence posts |
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| our garden at the end of May |
Since I post quite a bit on Facebook I have a pretty good timeline for anyone who is curious. Of course it's neat to watch your garden grow, but the best part is
finally getting some food!April 20th: Planted seeds (spinach, squash, carrots, etc)
May 1st: Planted starters (tomatoes and peppers)
May 29th: Everything was growing well (photo above)
June 10th: Harvesting spinach and herbs regularlyJune 27th: Harvested first tomato, squash and zucchini!
July 14th: Harvested carrots
By mid July we were picking tomatoes, squash and zucchini regularly. From this point on our garden produced more and more...I ended up with almost 20 pounds of tomatoes at one point! This came from four regular tomato plants and two cherry tomato plants. We then started canning, which I have to say has been wonderful to have through winter.
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| 18 pounds of tomatoes! |
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| Adelle and her friend Rosie picking cherry tomatoes |
Canning is definitely something I'd like to talk more about in the future. It is so simple and tastes wonderful, not to mention is a huge money saver if you have a surplus from your garden or find a good deal at the farmers market.
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| everything we canned last year |
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| our last haul from the garden, right before out first freeze (oct 21st) |
I knew once I had a yard I wanted a big garden. My mom always grew a garden and as someone who likes to know where my food is coming from, a garden only made sense. But I really don't think I was prepared for how awesome it would be. I'm not sure most people would put gardening in the "awesome" category, and maybe I am just a bit obsessed, but gardening is actually a lot of fun. It takes some work of course, but it was pretty incredible to watch my tiny little plants grow to giving me a counter full of vegetables and a cabinet full of food for winter. Not to mention that organic heirloom tomatoes are currently going for $7 a pound at Whole Foods...have I mentioned I am ready to have "free" food in my yard again?!
In my next post I will go over what we are planting this year. We are trying some new things (ever heard of ground cherries or tree tomatoes?) and nixing some foods that didn't seem worth growing again. We are also adding space to our garden...maybe this year I will have 40 pounds of tomatoes!
-Kelly
7 comments:
You know I would be the first to comment! I went to the Baker Creek website.. what cucumber type should we go with? My main purpose is pickles, however I am sure a few well end up just a snack.
Yay comments! We went with these, we are basically growing them to pickle as well: http://www.rareseeds.com/boston-pickling-cucumber/
Because I'm a creep, I remember you having some water troubles near your fence line (right???) at some point. We have some water issues as well. It causes us to have horrible moles, I'm assuming due to worms and grubs (ick). Is there a way to keep grubs away? I hear they're harmful to plants. :( I'm afraid to put in a ton of work only to have my plants killed. Maybe you'll have to do a more detailed post on how you built your beds.. ;)
I like the part about your Mother getting you started on your journey! It's always nice for these useful passions to be handed down from generation to generation, as my Mom did for me. Happy Gardening! ") Mom
Hah, you're not a creep! I did post about that a few times on FB. We don't have much of a mole problem that I know of, but I have read that that is a huge perk to doing raised beds. They're above ground so most of the roots will be in the box and the moles won't bother them. I do actually plan to do a post about the raised beds, we are adding on to our so we will have to do a bit of building :)
Just reread that, as far as keep grubs away goes I am really not sure. I did find this article though. I would think you would have less of a problem with the raised beds, and then if they did show up you could treat them at that point.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/organic-grub-control-vegetable-gardens-46652.html
I am definitely glad to have had your influence :) I love growing food!
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