It has been a little over a month since we planted our little garden and I thought it would be fun to report back, as what looked fairly sparse in the beginning is now insanely wild and yielding fresh produce and herbs for us!
As you can see, things have definitely sprouted since we planted the garden. And, with all the rain we’ve been getting lately, the zucchini and yellow squash leaves have gotten even more gigantic than what you see here!
Just one month into our first garden we have picked quite a few zucchini, have picked a lot of basil for making fresh pesto, mint for tea, and kale for salads. We soon will have some yellow squash to pick and we have many onions ready to be harvested and dried. And there are so many zucchini on the way that we will need to make “zoodles” with them many times over the next month!
It’s so much fun checking out what is ready to be picked from our garden and sitting down to a meal where we’ve grown many of the items on the table!
Miss H even gets in on the fun! This is our largest zucchini so far and it was so much fun to find it hiding in the garden.
One thing we do have to challenge ourselves with is keeping the garden watered. We’ve built it into our evening routine. If I’m home solo with the kids at bedtime I will put the twins to bed and then Miss H and I will head outside to water everything. Alternatively, if both Mr. H and I are home, one of us will take Miss H out to water while the other puts the babies to bed. It seems simple enough, but we do have to make a conscious effort to keep up with it. The basil wilts so quickly if we don’t keep up with daily watering!
We’ve definitely already learned a thing or two about having a garden that we will incorporate into our planning for next year:
- We need 1-2 more of these raised beds so that we can spread everything out. We had no clue that the zucchini and squash plants would get so out of control! They grow so quickly that it’s hard to keep them cut back, so they’re definitely providing some unnecessary shade over the other plants. Having more beds would allow us to give everything more room to grow and thrive.
- If we decide to have any berries next year we need to protect them from wildlife. Currently we have two strawberries plants and any time they actually yield a berry (which isn’t often), an animal eats the berry before we can pick it! It’s so disappointing. I would love to have blueberries next year, but we’ll definitely need to keep them protected.
- I would probably skip the onions next year. We planted them because my mom brought them up for us, but they have sprouted up like crazy and we have yet to take the time to harvest and dry them. I’d rather use that space for something else.
- We’ll definitely plant more greens next year! Our kale is doing well and it would be fun to try some lettuce or other leafy greens.
- As many of you had commented on my last post, we definitely should have kept the herbs in pots on our deck.
- Miss H loves broccoli (one of the few green veggies she will eat!), so broccoli is another must for our garden next year.
All in all it has been a wonderful experience so far with our garden, despite our many blunders because we didn’t really know what we were doing, and didn’t have the time to really plan things out! The best take away has been seeing Miss H participate in growing her own food. She feels very invested in our garden and loves going outside to check on everything.
grapefruit / 4235 posts
Awesome! FYI, it will take at least 3 years for blueberry plants to yield more than a handful of berries.
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
we had a great garden growing up and everyone’s favorite thing to eat was the cucumbers. they are still my favorite veggie, and my kids’ too!
pomelo / 5678 posts
Wow! I am so jealous, all mine has yielded so far is kale.
pomelo / 5621 posts
It looks great. Our garden is just starting to take off. Watering the garden is now part of our nightly routine with DS after we have dinner and he loves it!
guest
ive done brocolli, twice. and i will say it takes up ALOT Of room for one head. i dont find it worth it when you dont have alot of room.
blogger / pear / 1509 posts
I’m so jealous! We planted a good sized garden this year and even fenced it in, but so far we have lost all of the lettuce to ground squirrels, most of the chard and the peas. They’re waiting patiently for the tomatoes to ripen, so it’ll be a race to try to get the tomatoes before they do. Plus the tomato horn worms are out of control! I hate pests. We have tons of ground squirrels because we have chickens, so they come in for the chicken food. We joke that we have hundreds of pet ground squirrels living the good life with all the free food we provide for them.
grapefruit / 4703 posts
@2farmmoms: never heard of ground squirrels!
We have container gardens on the deck this year, and so far we just have lots and lots of herbs and jalapeno peppers. Our cilantro and dill went totally out of control! We have tomatoes and bell peppers starting, and we also have strawberries that are doing really well, but some little creature keeps eating them
Next year I want to do raised beds and more veggies!
blogger / pear / 1509 posts
@Shutterbug: Oh you are lucky. They are awful. They are fearless and get into everything. They look like grey squirrels except they are slightly smaller, brownish with speckles or sometimes stripes, and a much less fluffy tail. They’re only slightly better than rats, in my opinion. Sometimes we look out into the chicken run and see 10 squirrels feasting on our chicken food.