Last year was our first full summer in our new home and I had this amazing idea to start a garden. I naively thought, “How hard can this be? Put some seeds in the ground…viola veggies!” Spoiler alert…that’s not exactly how it works.
First you have to have a plan, right? I have a very limited amount of yard to devote to grow space. I did some internet/library research on suburban gardening and decided the square foot method was going to be my way of maximizing production with minimal space/maintenance. I created charts laying out the optimal veggie growth patterns. Then I had to actually build the garden, by I, I mean we, and by we, I mean mostly Dave. Living with an engineer has some perks…we have a perfectly level raised garden 🙂
I had a pretty decent first attempt at becoming a gardener. I can’t pretend there weren’t some major fails…like over fertilizing and producing eight foot tall tomato plants with one…seriously one tomato harvested. But I had a major success, a garden swallowing cucumber plant which produced enough cucumbers for every summer dinner.
This summer is going much differently. We built an expansion. Twelve more squares. And hey gardening isn’t hard enough…Let’s go organic! No. Just no. I changed my soil mix to organic and started the season with a major bug infestation. ALL of my precious seedlings…eaten. Gone. You just have to laugh, or cry. How are there any organic vegetables in the grocery stores??
The struggle is real, folks. My little garden hasn’t produced much…or anything worth mentioning. But I’ve learned quite a bit about myself from this weird experiment. Patience. Practice. Persistence.
Nothing is perfect. Everything is perfect.
All Images ©YellowYellowYellow
New Jersey Suburban Gardener – Michelle “Moo” Scelfo
Leave a reply