adventures in gardening

We planted a garden.  For real.  We are, like, so hip.

No, really, we learned a lot about what to do, what not to do, and our hopes for what our next garden will look like.  I wanted to share a little bit about our process and what we did along the way:

Since my husband manages a hardware store, sometimes he comes home with goodies that were on sale.  Thus, the beginning of the potatoes.  Someone had told him you could plant them in potato sacks, and since our soil here in Missouri is not that great (and we have moles in our yard…), we went the potato sack route.  We mixed compost, mulch, and topsoil.  It's always good to have a miniature helper (*wink)

Then we thought there we would be really brave and plant vegetables!  Behold…our little baby veggies and herbs:

In the Spring, we planted purple cabbage, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, an heirloom tomato variety called "mr. stripey", green beans, jalapeños  banana peppers, green peppers, cilantro, basil, pineapple sage, and oregano.  After laying out our raised beds, we planted accordingly, based on how much space we thought each veggie or herb needed.  Note to self…plan better next year. 

After a few weeks...

And after a few months...

Ok, so here's what you really wanted to know: what worked and what didn't?

The good stuff…

:: use a GOOD mixture of topsoil, mulch, and compost

:: uh, remember to water…?

:: tomatoes are super easy to grow and will kind of take over…so keep that in mind

:: the veggies we have picked are DELICIOUS!!

:: it makes your backyard look nice

And the bad…

:: our potato crop failed/ rotted, most likely due to overly wet soil and not enough sunlight

:: we didn't use pesticides, and our cabbage had a little worms that were eating the leaves

:: some of the veggies were planted too close together, which stunted the growth of the

    plants underneath (cabbage on top of green beans = no sunlight = no bueno)

:: the layout of our space, though compact, was a little hard to reach, so next year, I'm

    planning to set it up like this: 

Though my green thumb still isn't very green (I recently killed a cactus by OVER watering), I'd say we learned a lot this year and I can't wait for our planting adventures next year!