Growing a Salad and SpRiNg!

The day after we built and filled in our garden, we looked out front and there on the dirt pile were two HUGE woodpeckers!  I mean, they were as big as Woody Woodpecker.  We couldn't get a good picture of them before they flew up into the tree, but you can see them if you look closely below.  Remember, this is a very zoomed in picture, so just take my word for it, they were big!! 

Also, in the midst of planting, we got to watch spring officially arrive.  Now, if you stay inside all day, you completely miss this exciting event!  I LOVE to see the first blooms on our pretty tree out front.  It took a little longer this year than normal - I guess the cold scared it off!  But, it finally started poking out little buds as we were starting our garden.

Our crepe myrtle tree out back is always cut back to sticks about March, so it is exciting to see the first sign of buds.  Here is a picture of one of the branches the day we were building the garden:

This is the same branch, 3 days later:

Again, the same branch, one week after the original.  God makes all things beautiful in His time!

Ok, Ok, on to the garden.  So, the garden was built, we added good organic fertilizer to the soil in the bed, mixed it around, and we were ready for some veggies.  We bought a few that were already started, since, according to Florida guidelines, we were a little late in getting things in the ground.  Plus, we were a little nervous about critters coming and eating up all our seeds before they could grow, so for us, a mix of some starters and some seeds seemed a good decision.  Here, we are getting things going:

Here is the partially finished plot.  MaKenna made the cute little signs!  In case you can't tell, we planted 3 types of tomatoes - Better Boys, Roma and Cherry, Bell Peppers, Zucchini (all the starter plants), and from seed, Sweet Onions, Carrots, Lettuce, Spinach, Blue Lake Beans and Zipper Peas.  In two smaller containers, we also planted Cucumber (plant) and Basil (seed).
 

Hmmm, while the girls and I planted the veggies, what did the guys start??? More on that to come!  You'll have to be surprised!

This picture shows a couple of things - first, we "mulched" it with some leaves.  Also, this picture is one week from planting - do you see our beans, peas, carrots, spinach, onions and lettuce growing????!!!  How exciting!  We are almost at 2 weeks now, and they are even bigger.  I will post more pics soon and the newest addition to the garden scene.

We are about to build one more raised bed garden next to this one, while we still have the wood and dirt here.  We may plant some watermelon and pumpkin in that one!

We have worked hard to get this going, but we are loving the process so much.  We have had a few critters dig in it and found that when we sprinkle cayenne pepper around the perimeter, they stay away!  We will have to redo it tomorrow, since it has rained the past few days, but it seems to be a good, safe way to keep unwanteds out.

Anyone else gardening this year?  What are the tricks that you have found to work with critters - both bugs and animals?  What are you growing?  I have so much more to share and will hopefully get there soon!  In the meantime, I will dream about the yummy meals I will make with my homegrown vegetables!

Raised Bed Gardening

Oh, I have so missed my blog.  It has been wayyyyyy too long!!!!  I am not even sure when I was on here last, but I know that it was looonnnggg ago!!!!  I have so much to share, too!  How will I ever catch up??!!   Let's just say that while I haven't been on here, we have been enjoying life around here and the journey that we are on.  It isn't always just how we want it to be or perfect by any means, but it is ours and we have decided to make the best of it as it comes and be joyful at all times, even when we may not be "happy."  Think on that for a while, it's worth it!!!

For now, even though I have so many blog topics and posts in my mind (and my camera!), I am going to share something so exciting that we have been doing around here, in all our spare time!!!  So, get ready, here we go...

Last year, we decided that enough time had passed since we lived here, it was time to start a garden.  We planned small, just to see how it would go and actually used a small child's wading pool and placed it on our back porch.  All things considered, that went well, but this year, we knew we were ready for bigger and better!  For what we had in mind and the space that we had to work with we decided to build a raised bed garden.  Here is what we did:

We chose a spot in our backyard that got at least 8 hours of sunlight a day and that was kind of out of the way of the usable yard.  We chose a spot near the back left corner by the fence.  Next, we marked off our space and prepared the ground - dug out the grass and pulled all the weeds.  Like this:

As we brought out dirt that was no longer needed there, we took it behind out shed where there is a little erosion.  I really only mention this because in this picture of Holly working, you can see the little swimming pool that was our garden last year.  This year, it is a compost pile in the making!

The next part was to build the garden walls. Oh, have  I mentioned yet that we did this whole thing for FREE!  Yep, that's right and here is the first how.  Before starting the garden, we took apart Caleb's fort that he is wayyy to big for and never uses.  This gave us a tremendous amount of wood at our disposal!  So, the labor was free and the walls were free - so far so good!  Here are the first posts laying down and ready to go:

 Caleb and Holly decided all work and no play is no fun, so they take a break for some playtime! 

OK, the walls are built - now to fill it in!  It takes lots of dirt to fill a garden that is about 4'x8'!  Lots of trips with the wheelbarrow!  The dirt came from that pile that sits between our house and our neighbors.  He had a truckload of soil brought in last year for a planter project, he used the amount that he needed and the rest has just sat there.  We asked if we could use some and he gave us his blessings to take as much as we liked!  More FREE materials for our little garden!  So, here are the first few piles: (notice the difference between soil and sand!)

Here's the dirt pile we are working from.  After all that we used, it seemed like we barely made a dent in it!  (We are actually about to start another raised bed and use some more of the dirt this weekend!)

OK, that's all for now!  You will have to check back for the next part, adding the plants.  We are LOVING our garden!