How Does Your Garden Grow?

Have I mentioned lately that we've been getting some snow?

Just a wee bit

 Oh, right...and ice.

The past two days have been spent shoveling and snow blowing and generally stuck inside watching the snow fall. I can't imagine how much more we can take, because honestly...I have no idea where we'll put it all.

So, instead of dwelling on the snow, I spend a little bit of each day thinking about all the fun activities the warmer months will bring with it (eventually). My son and I like to day dream about the camping trips we'll take to Cape Cod or how we'll run around in bathing suits and go swimming in pools. Clearly, all those things are months away, but we can dream about them as much as we want.

Another thing I love to dream about is our garden. I plan and re-plan our garden in my mind, trying to decide what we'll plant this year. Our garden journey has definitely been one of trial and error, but it's certainly been a fun one.

When we had finally purchased a home of our own, one thing that I really wanted was a little bit of land to use for gardening. Unfortunately, also wanting to live in town made that next to impossible and we ended up with a house with no yard what.so.ever.

At all.

So, we had to get creative.

 March 2009

We did have some space right in front of the house that was bordered by a brick wall. The previous owners had filled the space with bushes, flowers and a dogwood tree, leaving it mostly useless as far as planting goes. As the winter thawed, we got to work and ripped out everything except for the tree, which we pruned back as much as possible.

We pulled out hundreds of roots, turned the soil and then hoped for the best. Having never really gardened myself before (if you don't count the wheat grass I planted in a styrofoam cup back in 3rd grade) and despite my husband's illustrious career as a landscaper during his summers home from college, we seemed to be starting at ground zero, knowledge wise.

I turned to the internet and found a vast array of websites that were more than willing to walk me through the process. I learned what veggies grew best in this climate and when to plant things. I decided that for our 1st venture into gardening that the best thing to do would be to use starter plants rather than seeds. Thankfully, our local farmers' markets had plenty of starters for sale.

Salad green starts and herbs

We plotted out the spacing and then planted away. We decided not to go overboard for our first try and planted cooking greens, salad greens, cherry tomatoes, string beans, and a variety of herbs.

Cooking greens, all in a row.

Rosemary

Checking in on the greens w/tomato plants up in front

The greens are growing!

The best part about planting our own garden was having my son get involved. Of course, for him it was a chance to play in the dirt, dig for worms and have fun, but he also seemed to grow a sense of pride in the garden. He spent time watering, weeding and eating straight from the garden! When friends came over he never hesitated to let them know what we had planted and offered to let them try something. It was a great way to get him interested in vegetables without even really trying. 

Watering the garden - 2009

We kept our CSA membership that first year, not really knowing what our yield would be. Color us surprised when our experimental garden flourished and we were inundated with greens, tomatoes, herbs and beans. It didn't take much convincing at all to prep the garden the following spring.

Spring 2010 - getting the ground ready

We shook things up in 2010, planting the usual suspects of herbs, cooking & salad greens, but decided to try our hand at heirloom tomatoes and snap peas as well as the string beans. We also threw caution to the wind and dropped out of our beloved CSA. While we really enjoyed being a part of it, by the end of the previous summer, we were swimming in greens between the CSA and our garden.

Thankfully, our 2010 crop was just as successful and we got some real gorgeous produce.

Mama size heirloom tomato

And so...with all the snow on the ground, I'm already dreaming of what new veggies we'll try our hands at. Instead of sugarplums, I have visions of tomatoes and collards and possibly even cucumbers running through my head! I am so ready to toss my snow boots in the basement, peel off my socks and go running barefoot in the garden. (Please feel free to remind me of this when I start whining about how hot this summer is...)