Vegetable Garden

We got our garden planted yesterday and I'm so excited, I just had to share. I grew tomatoes in containers last year, along with basil, cilantro and oregano. All did well except for the cilantro. I LOVE having fresh tomatoes, but often found myself waiting for one to ripen. I read that you should have 2 plants per tomato-eating person in the house so I got 2 Goliath something plants and 2 Roma plants (which I love!) I decided we'd do an in-ground garden this year so did quite a bit of research on how to get started. Nate and I removed the sod and dug up the plot and then he removed a bunch of soil so we could put in the good stuff: Miracle Grow for Plants and Vegetables, Peat Moss and Cow Manure (yummy!) Nate built a raised planter, filled it up, tilled it and said, "I'm done!" I set to work on planting everything.

Now, I have to back up to our trip to Home Depot 2 weeks ago. I decided I'd also like to plant cucumbers and green beans to go with the tomatoes and herbs I'd already purchased. As I perused the rack of seed packets, the girls were on the other side busily picking out their own packets. They popped out from behind the rack holding about 5 packets each and Kathryn said, "We want our own garden!" I said, very diplomatically, I thought, "You may each choose one thing to plant and that can be yours." They felt that was fair and proceeded to make their choices and put the other packets back. Juliana chose to grow carrots. I nodded agreeably and moved on to Kathryn. My good friend Kathryn had decided she wanted to grow...wait for it...corn. Hummmm....Okaaaaay...My response was something to the effect of: are you sure that's what you want to grow? She was positive and was so excited (she LOVES corn on the cob, you see.) So off we went with all our seed packets shunning every article I'd just read that implored that you, "START SMALL." When I told Nate about the corn that night, he looked at me incredulously and said, "We can't grow corn! It'll cover the window!" Indeed. The gist of my response was: at least we'll have shade on the window this summer, it'll save on the AC bill. Since we knew it would take a while to prepare the bed, we decided to plant our seeds in an egg carton to give them a head-start. They got quite dry several times over the last couple weeks so I wasn't optimistic about them doing much, but do you know those corn seeds sprouted! I'm very excited!

Which brings us back to yesterday. Kathryn carefully planted her corn seeds and I planted everything else. Juliana was playing with her carrot seeds and misplaced them and ended up more interested in the sandbox so I just transplanted the seeds from the egg carton and we'll see how they do. (Incidentally, I located her carrot seeds today so I'll probably have her plant a few more for good measure.)

To commemorate the occasion of our first vegetable garden, I took the following "before" picture:
I can't wait to share the progress pictures as our garden grows. With any luck, you won't see the left two windows by the end of the summer as the corn will be blocking them!