A place of my own!

 Finally! I have something I have wanted for a LONG time.  I have a real garden area.  I have a reputation for not being able to grow things due to my own negligence and frustration and it is often a topic of humor around the home.  I have never successfully grown a vegetable in all the years I have tried and even my flower pots wither away by the end of the season.  I really hope to change things around and actually get something to grow.

Last month we finalized the design of the beds and off I went to Lowes to pick up my lumber.  I managed to successfully pick out un-cracked and un-warped wood and Brent went on and put them together.  Our original 2-bed plan was swapped for 4-4x10 ft beds that stand 9 inches high.  He really did a fantastic job and I am glad we decided to double the amount of space because it doesn't seem like a whole lot of room.  I may be a little over ambitious though with what I intend to grow.

On Friday a HUGE pile of dirt was delivered to the house and most of my Saturday was spent filling up the beds.  I thought I would be extremely sore today but to my surprise, I felt really good when I woke up this morning.  We still have a lot of work before the area looks like we want it to but the most important this was I am now able to plant some things.  Which is exactly what I did this morning.  The back right bed is now holding  seeds for carrots, radishes, scallions, and two varieties of lettuce.  I left about two feet on that bed to plant some more lettuce in a few weeks in order to extend the growing season.

When I was perusing around the net one night, I came across a blog that had introduced a nifty free online program that will help you plan a garden.  This is exactly what this Master Gardener wanna-be needed.  It is called Smart Gardener and tells you pretty much everything you need to know about planning and caring for a garden.  It starts you off with the design, and takes you through seeding, sowing, planing, care and harvest.  it provides information such as climate factors, plant compatibility, pests and control, diseases, how and when to plant and harvest.  It is an amazing tool!  Here is what our garden will potentially look like when it is all planted.

I love that it gives me a weekly to-do list that I can check off as I complete it.  It goes so far as to remind me when I need to water.  I am terribly unorganized and very forgetful.  This little program takes all the guesswork out of my garden.  Now I am just crossing my fingers for some sprouts to show up in about a week.

We decided to omit the potato bins this year and just concentrate on the main beds and getting a compost bin set up.  We are going to take out all the grass around the beds and along the back fence and possibly put some sort of curbing or barrier between the lawn and the garden area.  We still have quite a bit of work to do but I think we will be able to get it done eventually.  

One of reasons we never did this before is because we just couldn't afford it.  I think that is part of the reason why this is so gratifying. Thanks to Pear Budget we have been able to purchase the supplies we needed without having to worry about it cutting into the grocery bill.  Since we have set aside money since January each month for this project and others that we plan on doing throughout the year, it is a huge burden lifted.  Knowing we are going to be growing natural, fresh produce for our family in an affordable and responsible way is so rewarding.  I'm still going to keep my fingers crossed in hopes that something makes it past my black thumb!