BIG changes to my garden

I cannot tell you how accomplished I felt after I put in my garden,

took all the photos and did my little blog post about it. So excited in

fact that that night I decided to go to youtube and type in

"how to garden....." and did research on each and ever plant that I had.

Well, after 3-4 hours on the computer I learned a few things. 

Long story short,  I was doing quite a few things WRONG and

they NEEDED to be fixed if I wanted anything to survive and produce.

Take my advice and use youtube! It's a GREAT resource! Seriously!

Here are my changes:

On my first garden, I basically took my onion starts (all 3 of them),

took them out of the container and stuck them in the ground.

Can't do that. Here's why: I wasn't giving the onion any room to form,

the starts NEED to be a few inches apart so a little onion could grow under

ground. DA Rachel! Through the many youtube videos, I discovered that you

can be quite rough (but not TOO rough) with those little onion tops. 

You need to separate each and every one, dig a trench, and plant them

a few inches apart in rows. We now have rows and rows and rows of 

onions in that little plot. It's basically my onion patch.

Next are the cucumbers.

You can see the 12 or so sprouts in a row.

Again, like the onions, I just took them right out of the

start and planted them in the ground. You need to 

carefully take them apart and plant them a few inches apart.

As you can see, mine are quite close and that might be a problem later because

if each one of those sprouts grow, they will have their own vine

and could knot into each other. I still need to get or make a trellis for the

vines to creep up.

Lastly (in this area) there is the garlic.

It's actually the wrong season to plant garlic.

You plant your garlic in the fall, just like tulips, because they are a bulb too.

So, in the fall I will be planted a bunch. Although it's my first time

with growing garlic, according to my research and what I already know

about gardening, garlic is probably the #1 easiest thing to grow.

(#2 would have to be sugar snap peas) It doesn't need

a whole lot of space, great to plant in a bucket or tall pot because they like to be

4-6 inches deep. You just take a head of garlic and take apart the cloves. 

(you don't even need to peal them, but you can if you want)

Then you simply plant the individual cloves deep in the dirt with 

the root end pointed down with enough space in between

for a head of garlic to grow. DONE! Fresh, home grown garlic. Once you 

pick it and dry it, the garlic will stay good for 3 months at least!

I'm pretty excited about it.

Moving on

Here is my plot that I MADE ON MY OWN! I'm so proud of myself!

Celery (8) is on the left 

Broccoli (8 also) on the right

Each one needs about 2 ft, which I don't have so I 

stager planted them in the hope they will all fit.

Each broccoli should produce more than one head of broccoli

so I should have a ton of it, but it freezes very well.

Let's talk pumpkins:

I'm super excited and super hopeful about my pumpkins.

They really are my babies!

So we bought 3 starts and each start has 3-4 pumpkin sprouts and each

sprout needs an 8 ft spread! Crazy! What were we thinking?

I don't know, don't ask. Over excited for Halloween I guess

(I LOVE Halloween incase you didn't know, like a ton!)

I left the 4 small pumpkin sprouts in hope that this is enough room for them

and moved the other 2

Here are my other 2 pumpkins:

You need to build a mound of dirt and then the vines will

hopefully spread along the fence.

There IS a real chance that they could take over the yard.

I think it all depends on what kind of summer we will have.

If it's super sunny, they should do quite well.

If not, I think they will still grow, but not as much and may not

produce as many pumpkins, and the pumpkins that are produced 

might never turn orange. It all depends.

I will say this though, the pumpkins are the most exciting

to watch because they change every single day. So fun.

Although it will be a pain to mow around.

I guess it's a good think we don't mow our yard ;)

just kidding Josh!

Here's my first strawberry bud. I can't even tell you how excited

I am about that silly little thing!

 Oh and I just had to take a picture of this tree in my neighbors yard.

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL! I just love it! 

And so do the bees, this tree just hums like electricity because of

ALL the bees in it.

I also LOVE the tree/bush I'm not really sure, right next to it

with the little green leaves starting to grow.

I just think it looks cool. I want to reach over and cut a few

for a big vase in my house. I think that would look cool.

But I wont ;)

BUT these people also have a cherry tree right behind the massive pink

tree and there is a long branch that goes into our yard

so that means I can eat those ones right? =)

last year they did NOT pick ANY of their cherries, I was SO MAD!

They just let the birds eat the. I was tempted to climb the fence

in the middle of the night and pick all the cherries, cause that's

such a waste. This year, I might just do that

LASTLY (and very importantly)

We bought 4 bags of new soil and mixed it in the the existing dirt

(I recommend doing this before you plant everything, not

after like I did. Pain-in-the-butt)

AND we bought a few bags of good organic compost and mixed

that in too. I think this will make a big difference then

if I hadn't done it.

Things that still need to be done:

~Cucumber trellis

~I have a big empty pot that some broccoli was in and I want

to plant some herbs.

~I think I have a little slug problem because some of my 

cucumber leaves have little holes in them

SO I need to go buy some beer (yes you heard me right) and I'm going

to put a few plastic containers level with the dirt

and fill them with the beer. It attracts the slugs

and then they fall into the container and drown.

Sad, I know, but they will take out your garden over night

if you have a real problem with them.

I'm working too hard.

I've never bought beer before so I'm actually a little nervous

about it! ha ha ha

SO, to all my LDS friends, if you see me at the store

in the next few days and you happen to notice

a bud light in my cart, I swear, it's for my garden! ha ha

Thanks for reading!

I know that this might be a bit boring for everyone

BUT I'm so excited about my garden. 

There is just something about working with the earth

and growing my own food for my family. 

It just makes me feel so good.

I think next year's garden will be even better