Finally! I'm a Gardener!

For a few years now I have yearned to have my own little vegetable garden. While we were looking for a house, having a good look at the back yard was vital not just to see if there would be ample space for the kiddos to play, but also a good place for a vegetable garden. Now I am clueless about gardening, especially vegetable gardening. So anytime I meet someone who does, I cling to them like a magnet hoping to absorb their knowledge.

A neighbor around the corner from us has a HUGE backyard easily two or three times the size of ours and he has been growing vegetables for a couple of years. And luckily he was very willing to share all his experiences with me and our community one Saturday afternoon. While I was in his backyard I took viscous notes and created a sketch in my head about how to create a vegetable garden in our yard.

When I finally got the idea on paper, Chris had a few issues with some aspects, so we made some changes and compromises. Basically we decided to create three raised beds at the very back of our yard and then leave the rest open to create an area with a bench swing. For now, we are just focusing on the raised beds.

So today I went to Home Depot all by myself (yes I WAS intimidated) and got all the materials we would need to create the garden. Well, almost all of them. I got enough wood to make three raised beds, but only enough topsoil, compost and transplants for two of the beds. I was afraid of spending too much money. Well, silly me didn't do the math in my head very well, because I ended up not even using all of the $100 gift card we got. So maybe tomorrow I'll go back and get the stuff for the other bed.

When I get home, not only am I eager to brag about getting everything on my own, but I also loaded it all in the car (also known as the box, scion xb) by myself. Well, we also needed to seed the backyard, hopefully for the last time, so we can have a full lawn. If you've ever had the joyful experience of seeding a lawn then you know first you have to rake the soil to loosen it so the seeds can do their magic. It took me an hour and a half to do 80% of the back yard and then thankfully Chris took over for me. I'm such a wimp. Chris spreads the seeds out and then we get to work nailing the beds together. That was more complicated than I think it should have been. We definitely need a new drill with more power .Arrrhhh arrrrh arhhh (that was supposed to be the Tim Allen grunt from the tv show Home Improvement.)

We get the soil in the beds and I plant my little plants literally minutes before it starts to rain. It actually rained on me while I was trying to put all the trash and tools up. So now I my vegetable garden. Even if I only get two tomatoes and a cucumber I will be excited. But hopefully there will be more than that. Here are a few pics I took right after finishing. They aren't the best quality, but I was rushing because it was starting to sprinkle and I didn't want my camera getting ruined.

So here is a picture of the three beds, I know the one on the far right looks crooked, but it's just the ground isn't level. I'll fix it later. I also need to fill in the dirt around the edges of the others. But since it was about to rain on me This was all I could get done. Pretty impressive huh?

Here is the middle bed. It has six cucumber plants and two sweet pepper plants.

This is the bed on the far left. It has three bell pepper plants, a cluster of basil, two cilantro and two rows of carrots in the middle I planted from seeds. I can't wait to see if I did that right. Grow plants grow!! I want some veggies! I have to wait about 50 days for the carrots, I think I'll mark that on my calender. I need to look the others I can just pick as they look ready. I'm so excited!!!

Oh and to top things off, a couple hours after we were done and the rain was trickling away I noticed a huge rainbow over out backyard. If that isn't a sign of good luck, I don't know what is.