My newly planted garden: cucumbers, beans, tomatoes and zucchini.
We decided to plant a garden this year. In another post, I mentioned that part of our yard was once an expanse of gravel. The previous owners did not have a garage. Instead they had a parking pad. We decided to forgo a garage as well. After all, everyone else on our block parks on the street. One of the reasons was we wanted to keep some yard space and add a garden.
In order to plant the garden, my husband had to dig up the compacted gravel first. What a chore. It was a painstakingly slow process for many reasons. First, the gravel was several layers deep. Second, did I mention it was compacted? Third, once he dug down, he uncovered all sorts of uh, interesting yardifacts (artifacts from our yard). Among other things, he found:a bottle from 1965 from a now defunct local brewing company, a radiator belt, rusty nails and screws, glass, pieces of metal siding, pieces of cut up trees, bricks, concrete chunks. I was thinking there might be a body or some bones in the near future.
Needless to say, after unearthing all of that junk in only a small section of the former parking pad, I did not want to grow anything edible in that ground. My talented and handy husband built a raised garden bed instead. I made two trips to the store for peat moss, soil and manure and he filled up the bed. I selected a variety of vegetables at the garden center and with the help of my mom planted them in the ground on June 2nd.
One thing I have discovered with young plants from the nursery is that it is difficult to know exactly how old the plant is you are buying. I assumed that I had a certain amount of days for each plant before being able to enjoy fresh, homegrown vegetables. Already it looks wonderful and all I have done is add water and pick a few weeds.
The Garden a few weeks later
Zucchini plant 19 days after planting
Bush Beans
Tomatoes
Stay tuned for more pictures and highlights about what is happening in my garden.
