48 Days Later

I've wanted my own garden for a while now, but never had much of a backyard for one. With our new place came a plot of land in the backyard that had already been used for gardening. Once the weather cooled down to about 100 degrees last month, I got the urge to till some earth. We picked up some supplies at Lowe's and I went to work.  

This is what it looked like when we moved here.

Not much to look at, but it definitely had potential.

 I was grateful for the sprinkler system that was already installed to water the garden.

 Here are my helpers/potential destroyers of the garden. The girls were really excited to help, and I was excited for it to be a family activity. I wanted it to be a positive experience, but I noticed that sometimes the more they *helped* the more stressed I became. I wanted them to be involved, but I also wanted the garden to grow. They were great helpers overall, although Dallin was not allowed near the garden. He is still in that dirt eating/destroy-everything-mom-is-interested-in phase. Funny how protective you can become over a stretch of dirt and seeds!

I earned this here blister by not thinking things through. Yes, I bought gardening gloves. No, I didn't wear them when using the shovel and rake, because I thought they were mainly for keeping my hands clean. Not so much!

After a couple shifts of raking, weed pulling, rock plucking, and manure spreading, the garden was a go. I was still skeptical though, I mean this is Arizona, and I had nothing but the back of the seed packets to direct me. Even so, I tended to my garden every day, picking up rocks, and making sure the sprinklers were doing their job.

    Seven days later, I about peed my pants when I saw a few specks of green poking out of the soil. The lettuce sprouts were the first to appear and I was thrilled that something was actually happening. I think I took 20 pictures of these silly sprouts.

Here's the garden 48 days later....

Like my ghetto aluminum foil signs? Yes, they are unique and have survived several rainstorms and the wrath of Dallin. I give them 4 thumbs up.

The carrots are the happiest plants I have ever seen! They are so fluffy and springy looking. Makes me wish they left them on the carrots at the grocery store. Maybe it would entice me to buy them more often.

 

Spinach that is pretty much ready to harvest once I muster up the courage.

 Here's the green onions.

 They are still pretty thin and wispy, so I'm curious how thick they will get.

 Here's the lettuce. It's close to being ready to harvest I think... Unfortunately our turtle and the neighborhood birds are fans of organic lettuce sprouts, and they ate off most of them before I got bird netting.

 We also planted broccoli and cauliflower, but I got lazy and decided I didn't want to cover the whole other side of the garden with netting, since there were only a handful of plants. The birds and our turtle seem to enjoy the leaves off of these.

Overall it's been really fun to have a garden and a new little hobby.

 I'm excited to see the veggies of our labors:)