we did it

We did it. We finally did it! I'll give you a hint...there is documentation of this momentous occasion in my last post.

We've been wanting to do this for several years now, and every season would come and go and still nothing. Well, we finally bit the bullet and mustered up the courage to give it a shot.
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My dear friends, this past weekend we started our very first vegetable garden!

To start, we planted arugula (my fav), spinach (the huz's fav), butterhead lettuce, carrots, broccoli, radishes and green onions. We have plans to slowly add in a variety of other vegetables and fruit over the next coming months. If all goes as planned, the first to pop up should be the radishes. Then, the arugula and butterhead. Green onions won't surface for another couple of months, but we'll have the grill hot and ready. Delicious!

Here is a before shot of the corner before we had our fence installed. It kind of resembled a burial mound so we transplanted most of the plants to other areas, and leveled this corner with the intention of starting a garden:

Here is the after, or maybe I should say "in progress" since we still have lots of love to give before our first harvest:

The sun was behind a huge tree in the early evening when I took this photo, but you get the idea!

You will notice that I also painted the fence. It was a deep red color, and deeply weathered so I decided to spruce it up with a little exterior paint. I chose Benjamin Moore's Wrought Iron, and I love it. The photos don't do it justice at all. It is a deep charcoal, but has a lovely blue undertone. I chose a satin finish so it reflects the sun just a tad and can be sprayed down with a hose when it gets dirty.

Next up, tomato plants in large pots to the right of the bed, and herbs in pots mounted to the fence, like this:

Source: google.com via Larissa on Pinterest

This summer, we plan to add a second bed to the left of this one. This will not only produce more to harvest, but it will also allow us to practice crop rotation which is important in maintaining an organic garden.

The finishing touch will be to install flagstone and ground cover surrounding the bed to help combat weed infestation.