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<\/a><\/p>\nSo 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!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n 1. Slugs.<\/strong><\/span> 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<\/a> too. Once the weather improved and the rain dissipated the slugs went away too.<\/p>\n 2. Space.<\/strong><\/span> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n 3. Product.<\/strong><\/span> 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.<\/p>\n 4. Volume.<\/strong><\/span> 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\u00a0vengeance\u00a0and I have so much lettuce I don’t know what to do with it!<\/p>\n 5. Water.<\/strong><\/span> 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).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n