Gardening – The Beginning

We are very new to the gardening world. I grew up with my dad always growing something, and my grandma always had a garden, but I wasn’t very involved. I don’t know why…. I honestly wish I would have been more involved. I was definitely involved in eating it! 😉 My husband was around gardening too but this is the first time we have tried to grow anything on our own. My mother-in-law helped us grow a few things last year in pots on our deck and the side of the house along the fence. Now we are completely doing it on our own and have built a long garden bed (pictured below). And we are still growing along the side of the house and in pots. Basically wherever we can grow! 🙂

We bought some seeds, which consist of:

• Beans (navy, kidney-regular and dark)
• Zucchini
• Cucumber
• Tomatoes (regular and cherry)
• Radishes
• Carrots (I got these free from my aunt)
• Pumpkin
• Cauliflower (a couple different kinds)
• Rainbow beans (different colored string beans)
• Watermelon

I’m  not sure why we decided to grow so much this year but we are just going to see what happens! This was $40 altogether, because they are organic. We already had kale and spinach from last year that came back up. We also grew mixed lettuces, peas, and cherry tomatoes. They did pretty well. We also bought some starters, which are mixed greens, peas, rosemary, and chard. I paid about $3 for each one.

Here  is what we have learned and all beginners should be aware of:
Monsanto genetically modifies their seeds. I don’t know if you can regrow their seeds but if you do, they can sue you. They want you to purchase their seeds year after year. Organic seeds are different. You can usually regrow from seed. So I figured it was worth it to spend a lot up front and then try to regrow from the seeds. We bought our seeds from Annie’s heirloom seeds. Also, you can grow some things from kitchen scraps! Here’s the post I found helpful on this, containing 25 different foods you can regrow from kitchen scraps. You also want good soil. You would think dirt is just dirt, but unfortunately no. It could contain pesticides, and other chemicals that non-organic companies put in to help you grow faster and bigger, because that’s what people usually want. And when they see those results, they go back to buying that same product, which is what those companies want. If you spend the extra money in the beginning to make sure everything is all natural (no pesticides, no GMOs, organic), you can try to regrow from there and enjoy organic vegetables/fruits each year. And FREE, that you grew in your yard. Here’s a link on companion planting (what not to plant together). And here’s a great post from 100 Days of Real Food on lessons learned when growing food.

A great tip: I heard that Home Depot (and maybe Lowe’s too) does a recycle program where people can bring in their pots so if you ever need pots go get them for free in the nursery! We didn’t know this until we had already bought some but we will need more so we will be going to get the free ones. 🙂

If I can do this, anyone can. It’s a great learning experience for the kids too and to see where our food comes from is awesome! And how convenient is it to just walk outside, pick something, and eat it, or use it in what you are making?!? For us, it has been all about using what we have. We didn’t buy anything fancy. And we did receive some materials from a friend. We also received free dirt from a friend! And it’s the real stinky stuff, so you know it’s good. 😉 If you are considering gardening but think you don’t have anywhere to grow, you might want to think it over again because you can grow just about anywhere! There is vertical gardening where you grow up. And you can grow in pots/planters. There are so many ideas out there for growing in small spaces.

We also have rain water barrels to collect rain water and use to water our garden. And I plan on starting a compost, hopefully soon! I also want to try canning after we see what all we can grow. If I get an abundance of cucumber, I want to make pickles! If we get a ton of tomatoes, it would be great to make tomato sauce and salsa. Or just diced tomatoes to add to dishes. I made this spaghetti sauce last year (pictured to the right) from some leftover tomatoes that were frozen from my grandma’s garden. It was so good! I think we are going to try to build a greenhouse eventually too. Here’s How to Build a Greenhouse for $50. And 13 Cheap & Easy DIY Greenhouses.

Here’s some of what we grew last year, and everything did pretty good.
(We also grew cherry tomatoes, but I don’t have a picture.)
Mixed lettuces, spinach, peas:

Kale

My grandma has always had a big garden. Every summer we would go pick stuff from her garden and eat it, or they would give us stuff to take home. Here are some pictures of the kids in her garden last year. She has too many things to list them all but we have always loved her raspberries! You can see part of them in the picture with Tyler. With my uncle there managing the garden, I know it is all organic. He is big on natural/organic/non-GMO. When I first got into all this, I went to him with a lot of questions.

My Kale came to life again from last year!
(VERY exciting moment for a new gardener.)

Here’s what we’ve got going this year. Mixed lettuces, spinach, chard, rosemary, peas,
and some of our seeds growing inside.

Here is the long raised garden bed we built. We aren’t sure how much sun this is going to get in our backyard but we are giving it a try. Last year we had some trees cut down, so there will definitely be more light than before. It’s still pretty shady though. And we have a huge hill, so not much space to grow. I know we could grow on the hill too. The biggest concern is sunlight.

 And here’s Tyler helping us build the garden bed. 🙂

And now for the answer to the big question, how much did it cost us altogether to get a garden going??? Well, the dirt was free, boards were free, we did buy some nails and spent gas to get around. Seeds were $40 altogether and the starters were $3 each. I would say it was probably a total of $70 (including cost of gas). SO worth it considering what we could possibly get back. There is an endless list of benefits to gardening. Especially organic gardening! Thank you to the friends that provided the dirt and boards!!! This is an exciting adventure for us. Stay tuned for more of the gardening fun! 😉