Side Project! (Gardening…)
Welcome back everyone! I hope all has been well in your neck of the woods, or city… or wherever! I am behind on the blog because all of our doggies caught a stomach bug and we have been busy helping them get through it. Our addison’s baby took it the hardest, but thankfully he, and all of them are finally better! Now back to the blog!
I am talking today about this little side project that I have gotten myself into. So, as you might guess, me and Steven don’t get a lot of free time, but I decided to talk his mom into joining me in growing a small vegetable garden this year. It has been a learning process to say the least! But, for a 35-year-old who has never tried to grow food before (uncomfortable laughter), there are Actually vegetables coming out of the garden!
His mom, Charlotte, has plenty of experience. She grew up on a farm where pretty much everything her family ate was produced by them. Yes, she is intimidating, lol. And I have to say, all of mine and Steven’s parents would be completely capable in the event that they had to grow their own food, they are all Amazing at growing anything in our zone, seriously they are so good. Now, with Charlotte at my side, her role here is to pretty much supervise me in my efforts. We chose to go with two raised garden beds and a couple pallets to grow around a dozen different types of vegetables. So lets get into what I am having success with, and well, what I am not.
I have to say, tomatoes are about the easiest thing to grow, so not surprising, we have more of them than we know what to do with. I can throw an old slice of tomato out in the yard and the darn thing will grow. But I still find pride in planting the plants and seeds and tomatoes coming from that effort and work. Some of the tomatoes were plants and some were started from seeds. They have grown from seeds and tiny plants to having to be staked up to stay upright!
Squash, this veggie is an absolute must in our family! Slice this yummy yellow gourd up into thin slices, coat them in some cornmeal and seasonings and oh-my-gosh, delicious!!!! I planted these from seeds straight into the dirt, following the package instructions and Charlotte’s advice very carefully. Every day that I check these, there are new little squash appearing. Steven built little lean-to chicken wire walls for these and the cucumbers to grow up and on so that they don’t completely consume everything else.
Next big accomplishment, peppers! Steven is addicted to any type of pepper, so we went with bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapeños and a pepper I can’t remember the name of… oops! These were all starter plants, so there was no pressure of getting seeds to start with these. We have just added stakes to each pepper plants to hold them up as well. Watering in between the rain has been insanely important here. If I don’t water everything as needed, the garden has been letting me know about it.
A couple other things that are producing are the onions, okra, cucumbers, radishes, and turnips! Each of these were started from seeds as well and required so much watering to get them to come up. I waited anxiously for around two weeks to see what was going to cooperate. I did soal all seed packets in water for about 24 hours before planting to jumpstart germination. I believe that was a must and will be repeating that step again next year.
I have to get to what all I did not do so well on. Sadly, the green beans, peas, garlic and carrots did not do well. My green beans and peas got fried by the sun, so next year I think I will give them another shot in some partial shade. The garlic and carrot seeds never even popped out of the ground, not sure what I did wrong there…! But I am choosing to focus on the success here, mostly at my mother-in-law’s demand, lol. She has been teaching, cheering and inspiring me through my very first vegetable garden, and when I stand back and look at it, I think I’m not doing so bad. We have eaten healthier already with just what has come out of there!
What should you take away from this you might ask? I think that everyone should get their hands dirty. It is feeling pretty good to plant seed and get the fruits in return for the work. We really should get back to what the generations before us were doing. They were not just surviving, they were thriving. They had less money than we do today, fewer commodities, but look at what they could do with their bare hands. They raised healthy successful gardens. Food to feed their healthy successful families. They are an inspiration, and in my opinion, their strengths are a goal worth setting and trying our hardest to achieve. I want to thank Steve and Charlotte, Ray, and Lisa and Jason! All of our parents who were inspired by their parents, who all set amazing examples for us to follow!
I hope you guys enjoyed this topic! I wanted to go out on a limb and talk about some of the side projects Steven and I get ourselves into. Tell us in the comments what success you have had, or maybe haven’t had with gardening. Let us know if you liked this read and if you would like to see more content like this, or if you want to see more work-related stuff, or a fun mix of it all! And as always, thanks so much for hanging in till the end! Have and amazing weekend, or week, depending on when you are reading!
