Spring Garden 2014

We love fresh fruits

and

veggies!

Love them!

I buy as much fresh as I can,

but only when it is on sale.

I do my best to menu plan based on sales

and specials at the grocery store.

We have tried gardens in the past,

but I bit off more than I could chew.

This year,

we decided to do a raised garden,

since weeds were my main nemesis in the past.

But this year I had help...
in the form of a 8 yo and 10 yo.
And they were excited!!!
So I knew they would be big helpers!

We started our seeds on our screened porch.
Each row was a different veggie we were going to try.
Carrots, green beans, peas, broccoli, 2 kinds of squash,
2 kinds of pumpkins, 2 kinds of cantaloupe, 2 kinds of watermelon,
corn, 2 kinds of peppers, a few herbs, tomatoes...

 We hit the local home improvement store,

and got some fence pickets

and some weed guard

and some soil.

(cheap soil!)

Everyone pitched in to help!

We used weed blocking cloth as our base.

And fence pickets as the side.

Our garden was 4-6' pickets long (24ft)

and 1-6' picket wide (so that we could reach the middle).

And 1 picket high.

Everyone except the kid climbing the car in the background.

After we straightened out the week block, again...

we covered the area with cheap top soil.

I lost count of how many bags, but I had to go back for more.

And ultimately,

it still wasn't enough.

Once our seedlings got big enough,

we transplanted them to our garden.

I think I overwatered in the beginning.

Then they weren't growing,

so I went back to the home improvement store

and was told we needed fertilizer.

We bought that.

It helped.

But,

we really didn't get a big harvest from our garden.

Most plants didn't survive,

we realized that we really didn't have enough soil for them.

We did get a couple of small watermelons,

about 3 ears of corn,

a few jalapenos,

some basil...

and that is about it.

But we are already excited about next year!