The Amateur Gardener

A couple of years ago we moved into our home. We were lucky enough to find a house with a very large backyard. I had always wanted a veggie garden. The first year was a lot of trial and error. We tried to fit everything imaginable into the garden and as you can imagine it was crazy!!! Our garden was productive, however it was a jungle!!! 

We started off ok here. 

Things started to get wild fast…

And then this happened!!!

There was a few things that worked out well. The green and yellow beans were productive first. We had a few meals of the beans and romaine lettuce then they were overgrown quickly and killed off by the jungle. Something I learned quickly is that if the veggies aren’t getting enough sun they will stretch out trying to get what they need, this is called bolting. The broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts all did this and ended up really tall and nonproductive. Anything that didn’t grow beyond the height of these were essentially killed off as they couldn’t get any sun. A couple things really thrived in “our jungle”, zucchini and tomatoes. We had loads of them!!!

This year we did a garden for just the tomatoes. We really enjoyed the spaghetti sauce we made from them and pretty much enjoyed them all year.

This year’s tomatoes…

We are already seeing many tomatoes growing on the vines.

The other garden is herbs and vegetables:

Radishes have already been plentiful as well as our beans. Romaine is ready to go ahead and eat. We like to trim the lettuce off so we can enjoy it longer. Once again we have planted zucchini, but I am trimming this back already as it’s trying to spread out over the garden. We have cucumbers, onions, rosemary, tyme, bay leaves, chives, and leeks this year. 

Growing a garden has been so rewarding for us. We will add another post later in the summer with updates on our produce.

Happy gardening!!!