Monday, April 28, 2014

Spring Gardening

I love having a veggie garden.
Fresh, delicious produce in my backyard means one less trip to the grocery store.
yes please!
Plus, fresh veggies are a million times better than the ones you buy at the store.
And they are free. 
Enough said. 

Aaron and I like to pretend we are farmers on our little (now chickenless :( Can you tell I'm still a little bitter) urban "farm" but we pretty much have no idea what we are doing and kind of wing it each year as we learn more and more. 

A few months ago we stepped things up a notch and doubled the size of our square foot gardens.
Aaron also added a drip system which handles all the watering and has made things so much easier.

Now all we pretty much do is plant, fertilize, watch them grow and my favorite part...eat them!
Having a garden has also helped me to try new things.
See that leafy plant on the left with red stalks?
It's swiss chard.

I didn't even know what swiss chard was a few months ago but lately we have been eating it with our eggs every morning.
I've also been throwing in some spinach and kale from our garden.
Yum! 

On this side we planted lots of tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapanos, carrots, 2 kinds of kale, a few different kinds of lettuce, swiss chard and spinach.  
Oh and a few flowers just for fun. 

Vine ripe tomatoes have got to be one of the best things ever. 
Fresh salsa, tomato sauce, tomato and mozzarella paninis...the possibilities are endless.

We also planted a ton of strawberries in those hanging planters.
My kids could eat a pound of them each. 

This year I'm most excited about all of these snap peas.

They are so happy right now and we are going to be so happy eating them all summer!
The kids love them and I love being able to go tell them to go pick some veggies when they are hungry (which is all. the. time.) 

In our other garden bed we planted lots of snap peas, corn, arugula, lettuce, squash...

more, swiss chard, tomatoes and kale. 

This side gets less sun than our other square foot garden and you can definitely tell. 
The snap peas like the cooler side but everything else prefers more sun. 
The lettuce, kale and swiss chard that we have on the other side are almost double the size. 

We also have cucumber, cilantro, a blueberry bush, basil and a baby tangerine tree all in pots. 

Do you guys garden?
What are your favorite things to plant?

1 comment:

Kathy said...

You have so much going on in that little garden of yours. I agree, there is nothing like a fresh picked tomato (or other veggie) right from the garden. The taste is so much better.

I like planting tomatoes, but now there is a groundhog who likes to eat the tomatoes I plant. So I have given them up for a couple of years. I love doing herbs. I have chives and parsley in my herb box, but am going to get some thyme, rosemary and oregano for it too.