Setting Up Our Vegetable Garden

Two summers ago, we started our first vegetable garden...and by "vegetable garden," I mean three tomato plants and some overgrown thyme. You have to start somewhere, right?

We had mixed results. There was a bumper crop of tomatoes, but I lost heart after the mail lady saw me in my canning apron and asked when I was due (I was not expecting) and then I went inside and my apron caught on fire. True Story. It was a super fun day.

We had good intentions last year, but every time T took a weekend off, I had somewhere to go, or he had somewhere to go. It just never happened. And then I spent the whole summer admiring other bloggers' vegetable gardens online and being insanely jealous over their fresh produce.

This year, we vowed not to let anything get in the way of our dreams of fresh vegetables straight from our own yard. It took us a couple of weeks because T hurt his back, but I am pleased to say our garden is in and we have life back there!

We started with a pretty rough Before:

Our back yard is just over half an acre, and the area to the left of our addition is the perfect spot for a garden. We can't use it for much else, as the entrance to the crawl space and a sump pump are there.


T started by marking off the area to be tilled with some stakes and leftover boards from his parents' house.

He spread some compost out over the area and then used his dad's rototiller to till the soil and mix everything up really well. Some people were really excited to watch...

T made sure to dig down far enough to place the first layer of boards, drilling them into the stakes for support.

The next layer went right on top and was also drilled into the stakes:

The girls "planted" their own stick garden.

After, with a few tomato plants from T's parents:

Soon, it was my turn to work. I really wanted to do lettuce, but it was too late in the season, so we settled on:

• Tomatoes
• Green, Red, and Yellow Bell Peppers
• Two Melon Plants
• Chives (from his parents)
• Zucchini
• Strawberries (Natalie's personal request)

I don't have a spot indoors to nurture seedlings, so we purchased plants this year from our local nursery.

It's been so much fun to peek out the window each morning and 1) Make sure there are no rabbits eating my stuff and 2) Watch the plants grow. Our garden is really coming along....this shot was taken last night:

There are still some major updates that need to be made in our yard. I had T till up the ground in front of the fence, next to the garden. I planted some peony plants, some potted rosemary and more tomatoes, and I have two small knock out rose bushes waiting to go in as well. I'd love to have a nice border between us and the neighbors that doesn't give us a straight on view of our lovely chain-link fence. I'm pretty sure I have a window box that can hang on the fence behind the garden to grow some more herbs.

What about you?

{Do you enjoy gardening, or do you get produce on the produce aisle (where I buy my lettuce!)?