Nicole, the Gardener in Pink
My family has had several garden projects in the past. We have had a few vegetable gardens over the years, and for a while now, my mom has been maintaining her flower garden. I have decided that I would like to try my hand at my very own vegetable garden. I thought it would be fun to start a series to share the process of learning how to do all of this and documenting the growth and progress of my garden.
Several months ago, I had this idea and ordered some seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange, but I never did anything with them. I'm not exactly sure what the thought process was at that time because one of the things I bought was lima beans, and I have no interest in growing or eating lima beans, so I'm not planning on using those anytime soon. I do still want to grow some of the other things I bought, such as zucchini, tomatoes, snap peas, green onions, and lettuce. There were some other things I wanted to try to grow as well, so I bought seeds to grow broccoli, carrots, spinach, cucumber, and stevia from Urban Farmer. This first installment of this blog series is about preparing and beginning.
After deciding what I wanted to grow, the next questions to answer were where and how to make this happen. I have ended up with a space a bit further from my house than I was hoping for, but I think it will actually be a perfect space for what I am envisioning. The space needed some TLC, so I got to work clearing out the weeds and getting the soil ready for planting. Then, I got a little fence to go around the space to try to keep our dogs and other animals out. I was concerned, when picking the fencing that I wanted, that I would have trouble with putting anything up because the ground surrounding the garden space is very hard. I opted to skip all of the fencing options that I thought were cuter, but that also had .75" x 1" spikes going (or really, not going) into the ground. Instead, I ended up ordering a type of fencing that I liked less, but that I thought would have a better likelihood of actually going into the ground. While I do think that this choice was much more successful than the other options I looked at, it still didn't work. I bought two packs of fencing, which wouldn't have actually been enough anyway. I opened one and gave it a try, but the other pack is going back, and I have to figure something else out. I've been looking online for ideas on how to loosen up the soil around the perimeter without a tractor or any other heavy machinery. The best idea I have right now is to water the soil in hopes that the moisture will help break things up. My goal is to get it loose enough to just stick eight posts in the ground and create a fence with the same wire mesh I got for the barrel. Other than that, I'm kind of at a loss.
Before clearing the debris out, after, and my failed attempt at fencing. I have a vision of what this space will look like with a prolific, thriving garden and I hope I can make that vision a reality.
I also have half of a wine barrel that I bought on Facebook Marketplace. It needs some repairs in order to make it usable, so I need to give it some extra support so I can get it ready to plant a couple of things in it, too. I bought it for $10 from Facebook Marketplace, so it didn't come in the best condition. The metal belt that goes around the belly of the barrel has fallen down, leaving the wood very susceptible to completely falling apart. I found a video on YouTube showing that I can fix it by drilling some support screws into the wood to hold the belt up. It doesn't seem like too hard of a project. I had big plans to get most of this done this week, but I have been very busy, and the heat is back up to triple digits this week. 🥵 I want to plant lettuce and spinach in it, but I don't want it to get eaten by any opportunistic animals, so I plan to drill some holes in the edge, insert some thin dowels, and wrap some wire mesh around it. Luckily, I have some time to get this done because my indoor seeds won't be ready for a few weeks, and I'm waiting to plant my other seeds directly until later in the month or even in October.
I decided to start my seeds indoors and transfer them outside later on. I went to Home Depot and bought a plastic tray and seed starting soil, and I followed instructions from The Spruce, plus the information on the backs of the seed packets, to get them started. I got them going in the tray and left the next day for a three-day weekend. I tried to make sure they had a good amount of moisture in the soil to sustain while I was gone, and I've been keeping them in the window sill of a room that people don't spend much time in to minimize disturbance. I've been doing a lot of googling, but it feels kind of like the fitness world where there is so much information, and it's hard to know what advice to take, so I have no idea if I'm doing this right, but I'm excited to see what happens. Plus, I have plenty of seeds left over, so after a couple of weeks if nothing good is happening, I can try again, and it will probably still work out alright time-wise.
I tried a couple of different ways of labeling them. My first idea was to use popsicle sticks because I thought I had some at home, but it turned out that I did not. Instead, I made little flags out of toothpicks and sticky notes, which was cute but didn't work out very well. They started to fall apart, and I later realized that that paper was not going to stand up to watering. Finally, I made little labels to tape onto the outer edge of the tray, where they are protected by tape and away from the water.
Planting seeds is a good practice is patience and faith. You have to take care of them the best you can, and hope that they are growing well down in the soil where you can't see them.
That's about all I have to share for now. Next time, I'll have my fence figured out, my barrel repaired and set up, and hopefully, my seedlings planted. I'm so excited to see how the garden space will look with real plants in it!
Wish me luck!
Comments