I remember it like yesterday. We couldn’t wait to get to grandpa’s house to see how his garden was doing.
It seemed he had everything you could think of. I remember walking through the rows of his garden and looking up above because the plants were taller than I was. It was so massive that we used to play hide and seek out there.
I didn’t understand it all then, the benefits and beauty of growing your own food. I did however appreciate the goodness of his fresh baked pies and pastries using fruits from his garden. There was always the smell of something baking in the oven every time we arrived.
Years later my grandfather helped my parents start their first garden. I wasn’t too fond of the labor, helping my parents keep up their garden. I was just excited about seeing how big the fruits and veggies could get.
You all know how I felt about those wicked veggies back then. I never wanted to eat them. My parents wanted us to learn the basics of gardening in case one day we wanted to plant with our own families.
I mean why would I want to plant a garden that yields wicked veggies I can’t stand to eat?
I’ll just plant a fruit tree or two.
Years later I fell in love with living a natural healthy life with wholefoods as medicine and nourishment. I never would have thought I would be seeking to plant my own garden.
I have learned so much and gained so much motivation by reading all of the garden stories and homesteading adventures you share. We may not be in our dream home yet but we need to start somewhere. We consider this our practice garden.
We were blessed to find a home where the family before us already set the foundation. I have kept in touch with Stacey, the one who did most of the gardening here. She already had beautiful plants, tomatoes, onions, strawberries and more. Some of them are annual plants.
My parents were so excited to pass down the tradition of helping us start our first garden.
Did they also pass down the green thumb?
Will gardening come naturally to me? Will I be able to take care of our plants and help them thrive? Will we be reaping harvest?
I’m not sure if it’s hereditary but together you and I will find out as I share with you our garden journal.
Dαу 1
Before I get into the actual garden I would like to show you the side of our home. These are some of the beautiful annual plants whose presence has graced us.
We first had to carefully pick out and rake all of the dry leaves from around the plants.
I didn’t realize just how beautiful they were because they were buried in those leaves.
I really love these plants.
I mostly love that no flowers will bloom on them. I mentioned before that I have apiphobia (an intense fear/anxiety of bees). I don’t want many plants around that will attract stinging insects.
I believe we have four of these plants. Here are more views of the plant and one showing the top of another...
We found a couple of tomato plants blooming...
Although these were already here we decided to plant our own in the garden as well. I use tomatoes quite often in our meals.
Looks like some green onions are here too...
Stacey couldn’t remember what these next two plants were. If you recognize them I’d love to know :)
The Garden
There’s my dad breaking the ground and getting the soil ready!
Now remember I said this was our practice garden so naturally I’m going to want to start with a small space.
He told me we had clay mixed in with our soil. 😬
Can you see it? It’s the tan like color.
Hopefully it won’t affect the growth of the plants. He said it should be okay I just need to make sure to water well. Also the fertilizer he put in should help with that too.
Here’s a closer look at the pre-treated soil...
We were breaking it up to get it ready to be fertilized.
My dad decided to use chicken manure since it’s a good soil amendment that adds organic matter and increases the water holding capacity and beneficial biota in soil. It also provides Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium to your plants.
I threw a few egg shells on top that I had been saving. I’ve been trying to gather more compost for some future planting I’ll talk about in another post.
Here’s what it looked like at the end of Day 1...
Dαу 2
We let the compose and fertilizer sit for a week and a half in order for it to seep into the soil and get it ready for planting.
Day 2 of gardening was quite short and simple. My parents came back to till the garden to get it all mixed in well with their electric tiller...
Look how moist, soft and pretty the soil is now! 😃
We are truly blessed for the heart of my parents and their desire and willingness to help us start our garden.
I’m excited to continuing learning with my family and looking forward to seeing how everything turns out. We’ll soon see if this green thumb business is passed down or not. 😜
Stay tuned for Day 3 later this week as we plant our first plants in our small humble garden ~ 💚
All photos are my own and were taken with our Cannon EOS Rebel T6.
The start of this journal was inspired by 