I’m feeling so excited and inspired this year to create a new set of vegetable beds! Vegetables are so much yummier from the garden than from the store, and there are no perticides in my backyard because I will be using natural ways to keep pests away.
Once again, I used the sun lamp from the hydroponic garden to start my vegetable seeds this year. I placed an old cookie sheet under the seeds so that water wouldn’t get all over the counter. I am growing three heirloom tomato plants in the hydroponic garden. Then I’m also growing green beans, peas, cucumbers, melon, watermelon, and lettuce. My lettuce grew successfully from seed last year and produced a harvest throughout the entire summer.
Here is a review of last year’s gardening posts:
My husband got me a couple of raised cedar vegetable beds, and I found some tall trellises at Lowe’s that were half the price of Costco. We filled the raised beds with good organic soil made especially for vegetables.
I’ve been studying about companion planting. Basil is a good herb to grow beside tomato plants because they keep the tomato pests away. Cucumber grows well with green beans and peas. I grabbed a sheet of paper and began scribbling where I would place each plant for maximum happiness for the garden.
Come to find out, cucumber doesn’t like basil, so I scribbled it out and placed it next to the peas instead of the green beans. The back of the raised garden bed is where the trellises are, so the green beans and the peas will be climbing those trellises. I have some poles to put the cucumbers on. I found some potato starts at a local gardening store, and green beans produce nitrogen that potatoes need, so I want to put potatoes next to the green beans.
Watermelon and melon grow along the ground, so they can grow around the potatoes and tomatoes, if they run out of space. We also got jalapeño peppers and red and yellow bell pepper plant starts. My husband and third son love jalapeños, and I use bell peppers in salads and other dishes.
I have an apricot tree that hasn’t started producing yet. I placed lupine flowers next to it on both sides, because they produce nitrogen that fruit trees need. Then I placed ruby red bottle brush in front of the fruit tree to draw more bees to pollinate all my produce.
The raised bed I showed you last year on my YouTube channel cracked over the winter, so I had one of my sons remove the legs and place it on the ground. I planted strawberries in it, because strawberries are invasive, and I want them contained. The strawberries in the terra cotta strawberry planter mostly came back, surprisingly, after so many freezes and thaws last winter.
On my back porch I’ve planted wisteria in large pots to grow over the pergola and draw more pollinators to the backyard. I also placed annuals inside the pots. One of the annuals is marigolds because they keep mosquitoes away, and I was just bit the other day before I decided to get an insect-repellent flower. Red geraniums have always been an easy flower to plant, and I got some small blue flowers to round out the splash of color.
I’m looking forward to see how successful my vegetable gardens will be. I will try to come back and drop another picture in here, to show you what it looks like when it’s all producing yummy vegetables!
Here is the transformation, a month later:
Tags: backyard, fun spring activities, garden, Gardening, spring
Heya.
I love to do gardening in order to exercise. You can find so many free gardening books on any library shelves these days as well. Alternatively you can decide to see if you can find a few colourful plants at a garden centre. I like to visit a local garden centre not far away in addition to explore it on foot too. Another likely place at which you can buy flowering plants is at a community allotment. You can even purchase other cheap flowers from the regular high street stores.
Most of the garden centres tend to hold a number of fun community events. I have often attended them in the past. There are several nice magazines on gardening that are readily available at the supermarkets and in book stores. Or you can try your own luck at city hospitals and in the restaurants. I happen to know that most other people love gardening. The schools always have open days at which you can see their gardens.
Best wishes. Make relevant inquiries. Even in our adult colleges, you will find plants for sale. Thank you. The national gardening society website is a great resource. I would actually begin there. Talk to allotment holders. Keep a set of brief summary notes. Gardening is fun. Flowers are pretty. There are a lot of plant hire companies on top of that. Go and have a decent look.
Gardening is definitely exercise! And we get fresh air and sunshine, too. I love the taste of fresh vegetables straight from the garden rather than from the grocery store, which have a more bland taste.