The Garden Project Part One

We started our garden project this past winter, when the ground was frozen and the air was cold.  Isn’t that the time everyone starts daydreaming about spring gardens? Last year we started planting some seeds in our garage in March.  Two months too late we found out.  Some plants made it, some did not.  Many were leggy and didn’t replant well.  We ended up with a container garden and had a lot of success actually.

This year though we were excited to plan a real garden.  A garden that would feed our family all summer and fall.  A garden actually dug out, boxed in and planted with a plan.  We bought a table saw. We made raised beds.  We bought a compost bin.  We saved all of our veggie scraps and scraped up piles of wet leaves.  We dutifully carted our little bucket of scraps out to the woods every day.  We got our boots dirty and were so very excited for spring to arrive.

Our first step was an ideas board on Pinterest.  Now this, we know, can be dangerous.  My husband reminded me that we did need to save most of the back yard for our children to play in.  And I know, I know, real life is not Pinterest life….although I wish it could be.  We were determined.  One photo at a time.  We developed our board and then got busy marking out an area in our back yard for our kitchen garden.  We filled our raised beds, installed gravel around the perimeter and started planting.  We are trying out square foot garden beds, so we will see how it goes.  We planted from seed, garden shops and local plant sales where local farms bring starter plants.

Gardens don’t happen in one season.  We realize this might take a few years…especially with the empty slate we started with.  But for now, we are pretty excited to see the culinary treasures this little slice of heaven will bring us this summer.  Check back every now and then for updates on our progress.