Next Year’s Garden

This year was the first time I’ve ever had a garden. I used to want to have a pretty garden with lots of flowers and every few years or so I’d invest in the dirt, fertilizer and plants and then end up killing everything but the weeds with my black thumb.

So I gave up, thinking I’d never have a garden. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d have a vegetable garden that would produce things I could eat!

The garden has been a learning process for me. I’ve learned a lot and will take the knowledge with me next year when we plant again.

1. Slugs. Thank goodness for Twitter because I never would have known that slugs were eating my lettuce had I not asked. I was quickly instructed to get Sluggo and it worked. I also built some beer traps too. Once the weather improved and the rain dissipated the slugs went away too.

2. Space. I didn’t measure out the space between the plants. I suppose I didn’t think the plants would crowd each other. They are definitely crowding each other. I had no idea the squash and zucchini plant would overtake half the raised beds. I would definitely plan it better.

3. Product. I bought plants that I knew we’d eat. But I didn’t factor in that the romaine lettuce isn’t my favorite plant, and it’s what we have the most of. I prefer green and red leaf lettuce over romaine so in the future I won’t buy romaine. Also, I guess Roma Tomatoes are the preferred tomatoes for making salsa–oops. I think we only got one Roma plant and the rest are other tomatoes.

4. Volume. I bought like 8 or 9 lettuce plants. Not on purpose, but they came in bunches and when I bought them they were tiny. I guess I didn’t take the time to count the individual plants. Hence the 9. When I first planted them there were several that weren’t doing well so I was glad I had so many plants! Then the lettuce plants that were dying came back with a vengeance and I have so much lettuce I don’t know what to do with it!

5. Water. Thankfully Michael installed soaker hoses in our raised beds. The amount of time it was taking to water everything twice a day was ridiculous. Michael set a timer so the watering is automatic morning and night. So much easier! I do have to water the herb garden manually but that’s because of the location of the raised bed (too far from the other beds to use a soaker hose).

6. Friends. Variety is the spice of life and having your own garden means you will have an abundance of produce you probably can’t eat all by yourself. Having friends to share it with helps. And what’s even better? If you plan ahead with said friends who also have gardens and don’t plant all the same things. I went over to my friend Star’s house for dinner recently and called her to see if she needed anything from our garden–she said no, because her garden has all the same stuff. But she also has sweet potatoes and peas–which we don’t have, so we might be able to swap some of our lettuce for peas. 🙂

I’m glad we planted our veggie garden. The lettuce is amazing and tastes a million times better than store-bought. I’m excited for the tomatoes and zucchini to be ready too.

QUESTION: Have you learned any lessons from gardening?