Veggie Garden 2012

I'm super excited that we have a backyard this year to have our own veggie garden and don't need to join a csa or organic co-op. I also hope it will keep me from dropping loads of money at the farmer's market since I tend to get VERY "inspired" there and generally purchase enough produce for a family of 12, or vegetables I can't pronounce, much less cook, (seriously, what does one do with kohlrabi?)

Megan recommended the site Smartgardener.com which is super fun and easy to use and taught me things about gardening I never would have known, like how some types of veggies should be planted next to each other to help clean the soil and increase vegetable production!

This sight is similar to the farmer's market in that it's organized, very colorful, and again, I found myself feeling inspired and ambitious about growing A LOT of different veggies.

The site recommends plants for your region and soil type and gives direct links to a few seed companies. I used the tools to figure out our plants and plot out our garden. Because I needed to start my seeds inside soon, I got almost all of our seeds at Menards so I didn't have to wait for the seeds on back order or delivery time. I am very particular about my tomatoes and peppers though, so I ordered a few different types of heirloom seeds, which arrived quickly enough to start with the others.

If all goes as planned, we should have
- 3 different types of heirloom tomatoes
- 4 different colors of heirloom bell peppers
- carrots
- beets
- chives
- Swiss chard
- cucumbers
- peas
- green beans
- zucchini
- watermelon (these were an impulse buy because watermelon is my FAVORITE food. My dad has tried to grow them for the last 3 years but the rabbits have gotten the sprouts. Hoping for better luck since we will be putting up a mesh fence to keep Peter out of our garden).

For our planters:
- dill (cucumber salads!)
- cilantro (grilled shrimp tacos!)
- basil (caprese salads!)

Now I'm just getting hungry!

Here are the starters I photographed on April 22 while playing with the new camera, only a few days after they were planted. They've already grown so much, Todd said one morning he was creeped out that they were downstairs growing so fast while we were sleeping. I'll try to continue to update on our garden's progress and ample harvest, (fingers crossed!)