Experiments in Gardening

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know we like to garden.  I have roses out front, along with a bouganvilla, begonia and rosemary plant.  I also take great pride in my grapefruit and fig trees, neither of which I planted, but both of which I thoroughly enjoy!  But the backyard contains the jewel of our gardening universe, our vegetable garden.  It's huge!  It measures almost 30 feet long and 15 feet deep.  In addition, we have two planters on our shed for my herbs.  Spring time is a flurry of activity for us with planting seeds, waiting for them to sprout, prepping our garden, and finally planting and caring for our seedlings.  It's a lot of work, but we reap some delicious rewards.  Last year, we harvested around 80 yellow squash, 120+ cucumbers, tons of tomatoes, some cantaloupes and watermelons, and a few bags of green beans.  We also had plenty of fresh herbs for my cooking.

Despite our successes last year, we also had some failures.  We planted three rows of sweet corn optimistically, but the squirrels ate every ear of corn that grew.  We also failed in our attempts at broccoli and onions.  There is one corner of our garden that is constantly shaded in the summer, due to a large tree in our yard.  It's great for the girls when they are playing outside, but not so great for the garden.  We had a hard time getting anything to grow in that section of the garden.  We also used sprinklers last year, which I would advise against.  Texas summers get quite hot, and as a result, a good portion of the water the sprinklers would emit evaporated.  Also, achieving equal coverage with sprinklers was a problem.  Finally, the water on the top of the soil was a breeding ground for mosquitoes and weeds!  Another issue we had last year was the size of our tomato cages.  They were far too small, and the tomatoes were planted too close together.  Toward the end of the summer, our tomato row was one huge mass of tomato plant.  It was difficult to find the ripe tomatoes in all that mess.

Our garden prep began in January.  We raked all the leaves from our tree in the back yard and put them in huge pile in the garden.  We watered them and let them sit for months.  Then we spread them out over the surface of the garden and tilled them into the soil.  In early March, we planted our seeds in small starter pots.    Most of our plants start as seeds, with the exception of our tomatoes and herbs.

Tomatoes on top, green beans in the middle, various other plants on the bottom

Once our seeds reached this size, we planted them in our garden.  The girls loved helping Daddy plant the seedlings.  

Big helpers!

After the plants are in the ground, I usually fertilize them.  Last year, we used Miracle Grow fertilizer crystals.  This year, we are trying an organic fertilizer that we purchased from The Natural Gardener.  I'm going to be honest, I think the Miracle Grow works better.  I'm still using the organic fertilizer, but my plants are growing much slower than they did last year.  Also, I mentioned earlier that the sprinklers didn't work so well last year.  This year, we bought soaker hoses and ran them underneath our garden, deep in the dirt.  They work MUCH better.  In my opinion, this is a far more efficient way to water, and we've actually been using less water with the soakers.  In addition, the top of the soil remains dry, and as a result, we have fewer weeds.  I'd definitely recommend soaker hoses or drip irrigation for watering your garden.  

This year, we planted three rows of potatoes (russet and red), three rows of green beans, seven tomato plants, two rows of cucumbers, zucchini, cantaloupe and watermelon.  I also have three basil plants, two parsley plants and one oregano plant.  So far, our garden is thriving!  

Potato plants

We figured out what grows really well in that shadier corner of the garden.  Potatoes!  All three rows of our potatoes have come up.  The smaller row on the right was planted later than the two rows on the left.  I love fresh potatoes and am looking forward to using them and sharing them with my friends this summer!

green beans

The hard part about the green beans is that the squirrels keep digging in our garden and have destroyed several of our green bean plants.  It's very frustrating.  But now the plants are getting bigger, and the squirrels have been leaving them alone.

Tomatoes, with plenty of space in between and bigger cages

zucchini

I'm really excited to have zucchini this year.  One of my very favorite cooking websites is Skinnytaste.  She has TONS of recipes for zucchini, so I'm looking forward to using my fresh zucchini in them.  I also have a great recipe for zucchini bread, compliments of my sweet sister-in-law, Jennifer.  Yum!!

cucumber

This contraption is modeled after something we saw in China last summer.  While driving around some of the outer suburbs of Beijing, we noticed that some locals had a very small plot of land outside their homes, and they would grow vining produce upward, since they didn't have the space to let it grow outward.  Our cucumbers took up tons of space last year, so we are trying something new, modeling our cucumber lattice after what we saw in China.  We'll let you know if it works!

Melons

My herbs

The girls have been enjoying the garden this year too!  I bought them both a pair of princess gardening gloves  to help me pull weeds this summer.  When we had just planted our seeds, they loved to run outside and check the progress of the seedlings everyday.  I can't wait until the garden starts producing veggies and fruit.  We love getting our kids involved in the process and teaching them about God's creation along the way.  We can't wait to enjoy the fruits of our labor and share it with our friends!