A Bit About our Garden

So I'm not feeling well at all this morning and I'm pretty ticked about it.  The kids and I had planned to go to the IMA 100 Acres with friends this afternoon (possibly one of my favorite places on the planet) and I'm dubious of my ability to go at this point.  *grumbles*

Oh well, there's no rest for the mom, so in a bit the kids and I will go to the library and get new books and movies for the week and then maybe I can amend our uber-fun plans for the less-exciting option of playing with said friends in our nice, controlled, fenced-in and practically mom-hands-free backyard. :) Heck, I'll even set up another Easter egg hunt and a craft if it means I don't have to walk a few miles with two energetic toddlers and instead get to sit at my kitchen table and moan.

We shall see. :)

In other news, I've talked a lot about how much time the garden is taking, so I thought I'd better start posting details about it.  For those that don't know, Brian and I both are fairly new gardeners.  We had a small garden at our previous home before moving to our house last year, but we rarely got much out of it but tomatoes and carrots.  Last year we moved on my birthday and dug a garden as quickly as we could, then hastily got it planted.  It was far from perfect and was a little late getting started, but we managed a good harvest of lettuce, broccoli, carrots, and tomatoes. The raccoon's got our corn.

So, this is the first year where we have enough land at the right time to put in what we finally feel is a "proper" garden.  Since this is our first full year as gardeners with said "proper" garden, we chose not to expand the garden as we'd previously discussed, and instead focused on planting our current plot more efficiently.  I found a great garden planner online (with a free trial or a nominal $25 per year fee) and have  been busy drafting the Ultimate Vegetable Garden plan ever since.

You can locate the planner here.  You can also view more details about our vegetable garden on this webpage.

This year we forwent traditional rows and went for an eye-catching block arrangement that also helps keep things, at least to my organized mind, tidier and easier to weed.  We're laying a flagstone pathway from the entrance (marked by the sunflowers) and around the center block of tomatoes, then each bed has a footpath between.

Much of this hasn't been planted yet, since it's still early in the season, though we do have quite a bit done already thanks to that rather unsettling "summer" we had in March.  The cucumber you see on top of the cabbages will be trellised on a PVC pipe to help shade that bed in the heat of the summer.

We've precisely measured out each bed size, thanks to the garden planner, and outlined it with kite string.

And, being a slightly OCD planner, I have even marked each.individual.seed with a wine cork saved for this purpose.  I just wrote what variety (we have 4 types of tomatoes, so one cork would say "Long Keeper Tomato," for instance) then stuck a grilling skewer into the cork and plopped it into the ground.

Also debuting this year is a tall garden fence - great for keeping out hungry kids (last year Liam ate as many tomatoes as he could, treating the garden like his own personal free food market) as well as hungry raccoons.  :)

What you don't see here is the fruit/flower/herb bed I've been feverishly digging by hand.  It's three times the length of the vegetable garden, so it's quite a lot of digging (though I will say my arms are looking more toned). :) I have a plan for that bed, too, and will share it soon.  Suffice to say, that's my pet project and I'm thrilled with it already.  Why, just this morning we have about 10 butterflies flitting around the wildflower/butterfly habitat I'm cutting in the middle of it.  The kids are thrilled and keep running after them with wild abandon. :)

So, that's just a taste of what we've been up to.  It's been wonderful to get in the dirt and work hard, and Chloe and Liam love to "help," which is something I want to continue to encourage and foster in the coming years.

While I don't have a recipe today (you got 3 the other day!), I do have the weekly menu.

As always, I'll update with any recipes I concoct during the week.  For now, I'm feeling just a smidge better, which  means a trip to the library or these restless kiddos.  Peace and grow!