Planting a Garden

Having the space and time to grow food was one of our reasons for moving to the country. Josh has expressed on numerous occasions that if he could do anything in the world he'd be a farmer, so having land to cultivate is the ultimate dream for him. The raised beds by the barn were here when we bought the property, and because we are still working on the rock retaining wall for the originally planned garden space, we decided to use the raised beds to get a few things going in the meantime.

I enjoy watching the process, and seeing how passionate Josh gets about seeds that have popped or planning garden fencing, but truth be told I know nothing about gardening or farming. For the past 10 years I've lived in city apartments with no yards, and while I often wished I had a little yard for my dog and some space to work on projects, I actually never dreamed about living in the country, gardening, or working the land. Josh has been dreaming about this for years, though, and while it's all new to me, I am really starting to get on board with the idea of eating food that is free of pesticides, did not burn gallons of fuel traveling cross country to arrive on my plate, costs a fraction of the price we pay at the store, and tastes delicious. Growing food is hard work, but if you enjoy gardening and have the time, it seems like a win-win to me.

Most of the veggies we planted were grown from seeds in our basement over the winter. Josh devised a clever little self watering seed starter program, comprised of a grow light on a timer, a water pump to circulate water through grow trays, and some other specifics I won't bore you with now (you can read all about it here and here). The experiment worked pretty well, and before we moved the trays outside to plant, here's what it looked like down in the basement:

A few seedlings are still too small and delicate to bring outside, but we were able to plant black krim and cherry tomatoes, green kale, a variety of squashes, cucumber, and swiss chard. We supplemented our seedlings with a few plants from the local greenhouse, and in the end here's what we've planted:

12 swiss chard
6 hills pickling cucumbers
14 black krim tomatoes
4 cherry tomatoes
12 pole beans
12 green kale
4 purple kale
4 green lettuce
4 red lettuce
6 brussel sprouts
9 sweet corn
1 acorn squash
2 summer squash
2 butternut squash
8 marigolds to attract beneficial insects to the garden

The next order of business is building a fence around the beds. That naughty Fern lady has already started digging around the lettuce beds, so we need to get something up ASAP. We try to be stern with her, but of course we can't stay mad long when she gives us the puppy dog eyes. We are complete suckers for that little pup. Do any of you keep a vegetable garden? Any tips or tricks you'd be willing to pass on would be very much appreciated!