My Garden, Part One

I’m not what you’d call a “gardener”. I wouldn’t even say I have a green thumb. I have no houseplants, and the flowers that grow in my front yard were planted and are tended by my wonderful husband. What I do know is that I can plant and grow veggies without much skill and talent, which is right up my alley.

I started growing food about four years ago. The first spring I planted, it was one lone tomato plant in a pot. It resulted in about four tomatoes for my kitchen, as my six-year-old-at-the-time daughter would go “play outside” and pick and eat every ripe tomato directly off the plant. Starting the next year I planted a cherry tomato just for her, and an additional tomato plant for me. Success!

Last year I got really ambitious and asked my husband to build me a raised planter, so that I could try my hand at growing other vegetables. More success! In fact, a bit too much. I over planted, and much of what I planted failed to thrive because it didn’t get enough sun, since it was shaded by the bigger, taller plants.

This year I went even bigger. The main reason being that this vegan lifestyle is expensive! I go so far over my grocery budget every week that I have zero spending money, and that’s no fun. I’d like to mix in a pedicure now and then, and who knows–maybe someday get to take a vacation! Anyway, growing the produce we eat the most of (and subsequently spend the most money on) will allow me to temper my spending at the grocery store; hopefully enough to start making a difference.

I had Tommy make the super deep planter into two not so deep planters, plus I dug up this strip of land–25′ long by 2.5′ wide–that runs along the back of my garage and beyond. It was half grass, half weedy dirt, and took me the better part of a Saturday to pull and till by hand. But it was worth it!

This is the planter he built me last year.

And after separating them

Long strip of land before

Long strip of land after

So that’s the beginning! The next garden post will be my initial planting. Then I’ll show you what everything looks like now–it’s amazing how quickly everything grows! (Also amazing is that anything grows at all, seeing as how little I actually know about gardening, and how chaotically I plant everything.)

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