Gardening: The Beginning

I realize that title might sound like this is going to be an exercise in creative writing. It’s not. This is me being very proud of the little garden my grandparents and I started (I am living with them for the time being). What started as two overgrown, clay-filled raised beds are now two beautiful raised beds filled with good soil and some seeds and what started as a pile of wood is now 4 standing beds filled with herbs and a salad garden. I am so excited!

I have always liked plants and the idea of having a little herb garden – any of my former roommates will attest to this. And I have been fairly successful in the past though my parents’ house seems to kill any plants I have growing nicely – seriously, my basil plant I grew from seed was beautiful and 2 hours outside at my parents house and the thing got a specific basil killing disease and died within a week :/ . However, Grandma and Grandpa’s house seems to grow plants much better so we have hope!

This is what we started with – I forgot to take pictures of all three beds before I started pulling weeds so just imagine the one overgrown one you see, multiply by three, add a few small trees and bushes, and you have the garden prior to when I remembered to take a picture.

Then we added lots of sand and garden soil, tilled the soil, planted some seeds, and VOILÀ!

And we had LOTS of help from the local wildlife.

Our standing beds.

The tomato and basil plants in separate planters.

I am so excited and proud of the little guys! We are keeping them watered from the rain barrels we set up and we have started to get some sprouts!

We just had to build a cover for some of the raised beds because the rodents and bunnies decided to dig up the seeds from one of them. But, I am still super excited becuase most of the plants seem to be doing well. Now, if the lettuce and spinach could grow as fast as the weeds, my love for salads would be healthily supported! Anyways, I will keep y’all updated on our gardening adventures!