This is always one of my favorite posts to write because it means our garden is in the works! Gardening is something I’ve only really come to learn and love but man, does it feel good to grow your own food. Planting, sowing, tending, and harvesting- it all brings me so much joy!
This year, we built our own garden beds at our new home and I couldn’t be more excited. With two 12 ft. by 6 ft. beds we have over 140 square feet of planting space. That’s huge!
I spent the last few weeks tending to seedlings I started in my Seed Starter Tray which was a gift from Ryan’s mom. It was so much fun to watch my plants go from seeds to seedling. Last year, we planted directly from seeds into our garden and had success with almost everything (except herbs because herbs are awful and hate me and I just have to buy the darn plant, okay?) so we will probably utilize that strategy with any re-planting that needs to be done later in the summer. However, I wanted to try to grow my own seedlings to start things off this year. Unfortunately, one hot day fried my seedlings and I had to resort back to seeds in the ground. Luckily, those seeds seem to be taking very well.
Now, let’s get down to the nitty, gritty. What are we planting this year?!
When planning out our gardens, I really tried to think about the vegetables we eat weekly, if not daily. Once I had established that list, I did my best to figure how much space each crop would need. Then, I divided the crops amongst our two beds and tried my best to keep companion plants in mind. Here’s what we ended up with.
Garden Bed 1 – Green Beans, Snap Peas, Cucumber, Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Plum Tomatoes, Beef Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic
Garden Bed 2 – Yellow Squash, Acorn Squash, Zucchini, Spaghetti Squash, Carrots, Beets, Radishes (Two Types), Lettuce Mix
I prefer using a chart on Google Docs to plan my space before planting. I find it makes things 10x’s more organized. I broke each garden bed down by the square footage and plotted everything out the best I could. Note: this always gets adjusted slightly when I finally get to planting.
I’m still new to this, so I’m not quite sure how each crop will grow or if I’ve designated enough space for each. I’m working off of last year’s success and giving some new things a try. I am very excited to see how things progress over the next few weeks. June is definitely the most exciting time in a garden because there is so much change!
I’m hoping to share garden updates pretty frequently on here, so stay tuned if this post peaked your interest at all. I hope you’re as excited to see the results as I am.