Look How Our Garden is Growing!

One of the things that excited me most about home-ownership was the idea of a backyard garden. Back on our third-story, North-facing apartment balcony, we attempted to grow some tomatoes in one of those upside-down hangy things.

It didn't turn out too well. We got one tomato, and it barely turned orange. That poor plant tried its darndest, though.

Chris and I built our own beds out of pine according to the specifications found in All New Square Foot Gardening.  I bought the book last fall. I like it. We are using this book combined with our grandparents' and my dad's advice for our first garden. For the soil we used two parts garden soil to one part potting soil like my grandma and someone on HGTV (maybe? I can't really remember) suggested.

Our beds

Both beds have marigolds and nasturtiums (or nasty-terd-iums, as my husband likes to call them. I'm assuming he is referring to the cat poo from our friendly neighborhood wanderer who decided the beds were his personal litterbox rather than returning to the mindset of a 12-year-old). 

The South Bed has lettuce, carrots, cilantro, oregano, green green beans, yellow green beans, and purple green beans.

The North Bed has tomatoes and peppers. They are all transplants. Since this is our first garden I didn't want to attempt growing them from seeds indoors. If this goes well, maybe we'll build a cold frame and a mini-greenhouse in the backyard for starting seeds next year. 

The North Bed

Lettuce sprouts from the South Bed

Look closely or click to enlarge. They're there, I promise! 

Here's the official Emily-can't-remember-what's-what-so-she-made-a-chart Garden Chart

I'm really excited about growing some of our food ourselves. I'm sure we'll make plenty of mistakes along the way, but as long as we try, I'm not too concerned. 

I'll be sure to post lots of pictures as our yummies continue growing.