Third Time's the Charm?! (We hope!)

Aaaaand, we're back for a third round of "can-we-actually-start-the-garden-this-year?!"

We've made some serious progress folks!

#1 The grass is alive!

#2 The fence is stained!

#3 The first garden bed is actually put together.

Think we may finally have this down, we're still at an impasse though, but I'll explain that after I show you all the pretty pictures!


Here you'll see what I call "the back 40." We have a ridiculously large back yard for the city dwelling we inhabit. Frankly, I love it. We can look outside and see nothing but trees and our lawn. This was why it was so important to us to get that back to living before starting the garden - one thing at a time! You'll notice, way yonder in the distance, a dusty patch next to the house, that's where the garden beds will be placed. Likely we'll have to rent a tiller to get the ground broken up and able to sustain life, it's a bit like concrete at the moment.

 
Here are the bed's that will house our veggies and herbs! We have a total of 2 sets. Let me tell you the wonderful story that goes behind our attempt to get this all finished this past weekend: We had just finished staining the fence, and were on a roll with the ol' paintbrushes, so we decided "no time like the present" to just go ahead and stain the pieces for the beds! Uh, yeah, there are about 50 bagallion pieces to these darn things! We hauled them all out to the side of the house (opposite to the side of the garage, mind you) and proceeded to start staining. What we discovered was this: it was a) very messy to do these one at a time; and b) very time consuming! So they all got moved up to the patio until we could procure a power drill from one of our father's to put them all together first, and then stain them!

 
Dear, sweet Ryan spent the better part of his evenings this week getting the main boxes (of the first bed) assembled after borrowing my dad's drill. He's been having fun, I'm pretty sure. You know guys and power tools ;). There are still about 25 bagallion pieces still left to be put together from the auxiliary beds, plus the whole other bed....it's going to be a process!

So we just have to stain them now, and till the ground and make it life sustaining, lay down some week barriers around the boxes, and then (probably the most important thing), figure out what the heck we're supposed to do to keep a garden alive!

Yeah, you read that right, we discovered that we actually have no clue what we're doing. I tried looking at Farmer's Almanac, planting by our Zone (8A), reading blogs, but I'm so confused. I've been a city slicker too long! My family used to have huge, sprawling gardens (of which I was required to help maintain), but when I left for college 12 years ago, that all stopped and my head got filled with academic pursuits and purged all the gardening knowledge! We're completely lost, and it makes me sad!

We know what we want to plant: tomatoes, onions, garlic, squash, peppers, green beans, and various herbs (there may be more I'm forgetting....) but we really don't know where to start. So I put this question out to the universe (or at least other backyard gardeners), where do you go for information? How do you know when to plant, how deep to plant, etc. Do you just go by the seed packets, or do you use an online resource? Thanks for any help! More to come soon (promise!).

Paused again!

Ok, so we keep having false starts with our garden! The grass was in such bad shape that we agreed that before we embark on a new journey, we should probably give the grass some CPR (or TLC, or whatever!) to get it back to life.

We've been successful, but now we're in the throes of late June and the weather is wilt-worthy out there! No garden just yet, I'm going to start doing my research to see what we can plant for a fall/winter harvest though.

Is there anyone out there who can help me out?!

We have Tulips!

The tulips have sprouted! They're still little runty things, but they're beginning to bloom anyway! It feels good to make things grow!

We have bloom-age!

I'm thrilled to announce that our Narcissus are extremely happy in their new home! They burst through the ground in just a few days and the first blooms appeared less than two weeks after planting them! They are really happy little campers!

We also have a few Tulips breaking through right now. They're still stubby little things, and I have come to realize that they will grow much slower than the Narcissus, but that's ok, at least I know they're alive!

I'll post some pictures this weekend when I have a chance to get outside in the sun. Getting home after 6 prevents decent pictures from being taken on a weekday.

I'm trying to convince Ryan to get our planting boxes assembled and sealed this weekend. We have an unexpectedly free Saturday and I would love to just knock that out and get it done so I can start browsing the garden departments for seedlings! I'll post pictures of the assembly if it happens. This is just so exciting!

Here it is February again!

Aaaaand, we're back!

We were lucky enough to procure a second planting box due to Costco's fabulous price. Here's the glitch: they're still not set up. Yes, you heard right, we've had plenty of time to get the buggers situated and we've failed :( Time is tight for both of us, I'm really hoping we can get this done though, because I really want my salsa garden this year!

On the positive side we have been busy getting our fingernails dirty and have planted tons of tulips and narcissus in the front yard! Can't wait to see them bloom.

More updates once I can convince Ryan (but mostly myself) to get out and put those boxes together!

Things change....for the better!

We got our garden box! I'm so excited! Costco dropped the price by two-thirds now that it's reaching the end of the planting season. I'm pumped! We aren't sure yet whether or not we'll be planting anything for fall yet, but it's sitting in our garage waiting for a space to be cleared on the side of the house.

We've been battling our lawn recently. It's been turning yellow, and we've got crab grass thanks to the neighbors who've let their lawn go completely to crab grass. We are determined not to let that happen in our lawn, but it will always be a problem since our lawn butts up against theirs.

We bought a badminton/volleyball set and got it all set up in the back yard, it's a lot of fun. My parents gave us a croquet set they won in a raffle and didn't want. We've definitely got a wide variety of sports to play.

I'm just excited to get our garden started though, and I'm going to try to convince Ryan to plant at least some greens for the fall...we'll see!

Choices

Money is tight. That's a common phrase now-of-days. We had to make a decision between patio furniture and a garden, and the furniture won out. I'm sad, but, still feeling energized, because while there may not be a pretty vegetable garden this year...there is still plenty of work to do in our yard. It also may be a bit much to handle since we're still within the first six months of moving in.

That said, the blog will be on pause until next year, when we feel we have more time to dedicate to the responsibilities of being gardeners.