Putting in a Garden Over the Weekend

"Why yes! These veggies are from my garden!" She said three months from now.

This weekend while the guys went camping, I was home with the sick baby and used her long napping sessions to get in my first ever vegetable garden in the backyard! I'm pretty dang excited about it and I really hope it doesn't die. It was sunny for once and felt great to be outside getting dirty, making something. 

In mid-April we planted seeds in starter pods and kept them indoors for 2 weeks while they grew like insane gangbusters. 

Planting seeds on April 17

And those seeds just 10 days later

I didn't expect the starts to grow so quickly, so I decided I better get them planted in the garden ASAP. I'd been keeping an eye on the backyard to see where a good sunny spot would be for the raised beds, and decided the flat grassy spot by the pool was perfect - sunny, flat and easily accessible. 

So in between naps, baby and I rushed out to Home Depot and loaded up on supplies. I bought a raised bed kit made out of cedar and 25 cubic feet of dirt to fill it up - which is A LOT of dirt.

9 giant bags to be exact

The raised bed kit went together easily enough, but I can't recommend it. Two of the posts broke as I was sliding in the boards - one I just turned and used a different slot, but the other break happened after the whole thing was assembled so I had to "patch" it together with deck screws and wood scraps.

Getting dirty!

The bed kit assembled, easy to put together but not very sturdy

I lined the boxes with weed blocker fabric and then dumped in the dirt after schlepping them from the minivan - so exhausting oh my god! The kit made one deeper bed and one shallower, which worked out perfect for what I was planting - veggies that grew down (beets, carrots) I put in the deep side, while shallower veggies I put in the other side (peas, herbs). I dumped and raked in 8 of the 9 bags and that was enough for Friday - shower and cocktail time.

Ready to plant!

On Saturday, the next thing I did before planting was to weave a pea trellis for the snow pea vines to grow up. I'd never done this before (because I'm neither a weaver or a farmer), but it wasn't hard at all. I just googled some pics and then made up my own version using 4 plastic-coated garden stakes, 3 zip ties, 6 eye screws and a roll of garden twine. I felt very homestead-ish after I finished this, like maybe I should be weaving pea trellises for a living? Nah.

I used a rubber mallet to hammer in three stakes, and then zip tied the fourth stake across the top. I screwed 6 metal eye screws into the wood and used them to tie off the string. Easy PEAsy. Har.

Close up of eye screws

Please upgrade us!!!

It was time to plant! I put 3 of the 6 starters in the soil and decided to "harden off" the other 3 starter pods. But I forgot about them outside overnight following cocktail hour but they were just fine, so I went ahead and planted them, too, on Sunday. I also added a trellis to one side for the cucumbers to grow on.

Sunday baby and I visited 2 local nurseries and picked up some tomato plants, lettuces, and the cucumber trellis. We planted those along with zucchini, squash and herbs. Then I labeled everything and just as I was finishing Sunday it started to pour rain - perfect!

We should have our $250 salad in July or August

PROJECT REFLECTIONS
Total cost: ~$250
     $100 for raised bed kit, $90 for 9 bags of organic soil, the rest toward plants, seeds, trellises, starter pod kit, weed blocker fabric
Easiest part: Putting the bed kit together, even though it broke a couple times
Hardest part: Carrying all that heavy dirt and dumping it in
What I'd do differently next time: Build my own beds from lumber
What I learned: That I'm super awesome at weaving pea trellises!