Gardening, a green thumb on the first try

Some women may ask their significant other for a brand new Michael Kor's handbag. Don't get me wrong, I love and appreciate all things MK and handbag related. I've just had my sights on something even bigger and better for the past few years!!! The issue is that I do not live alone and John is not even remotely on board. My relentless,"but Tori Spelling has one, and her's eats scones off of the kitchen table", has not helped matters. It may have actually  made things worse. When he officially nixed my dream of a beautiful  indoor silkie chicken, I knew it was time to move on.

 

I redirected my energy into what I knew would be my next hoorah, our outdoor farm. I could see it coming into fruition, a  regular chicken coop( NO silkies allowed), a bunny hutch, some goats the works! We'd have organic eggs! We'd have an....H.O.A.
I thought once you became an adult you were allowed to have fun! Fine plan C, we'll have tomatoes! I'll have the best tomatoes ever! I'd need a raised bed, some pots and a tractor! Fine I guess If I can live without my silkie chicken, I can live without a tractor too, but I do look good in green.

Off to Lowes we went. We had two options, the ready to build raised bed kit or we could get creative and make one ourselves. Ours could be deeper if we made it ourself and less expensive. Option 2 it was! This seemed like the better idea until I heard John yell, "We shoulda bought the damn kit" to his friend mid-construction. oops : )

 Being a first time gardener I decided to keep things simple and stick to a few basic plants.  I didn't want to get carried away or overwhelmed. Ok I tried, I really did but it was so tempting and everything looked so good! We bought a few things from plants, seeds and 2 things from my scrap garden. Scrap what a ?! you ask, yes a scrap garden! You regrow things from scraps leftover in your kitchen! It's not only ingenious but it's easy. I'll update more on it later, but the scrap garden is thriving!

From plants

1)bibb lettuce
2)sweet onions
3)broccoli
4)chives

From seeds

1)carrots
2)spinach
3)tomatoes

4)turnips
5)sweet peppers
6)green peppers...the only thing that didn't grow
7)yellow squash
8)zuchinni
9)an herb kit...basil,chives,oregano
10)purple basil

Scrap garden

1)white onion
2)garlic


From the seeds I planted the majority in either biodegradable egg crates or plastic containers. I made sure to put them in a sunny spot and water them daily. The squash and the zuchini I planted straight into the raised bed. After about a month the sun was not shining as bright into the house, so I started taking the pots onto the deck every morning and bringing them in every night. I could probably leave them on the deck fulltime, but I don't want them to get too cold at night or over watered with the occasional rain. The one night that I did  leave everything out, it got too cold and we lost half of our turnips, go figure. So for now, I'm babying them a little. With the biodegradable egg crates it makes transplanting super easy, just make sure you're using the paper NOT the plastic ones!!!My sweet little  sweet peppers finally outgrew their pot and I moved them into their  new home in the raised bed community today, keep your fingers crossed!
My biggest issue thus far has been trying to figure out when to plant and transplanting. It said it was ok to plant, but our weather threw us a curve ball and a last minute frost made the broccoli a little touch and go for a minute. Transplanting is a scary concept to me, I'm scared of tearing their little roots or messing up the whole thing and mess, yes it is! Aside from those two issues it's  just been water, sun and consistency. If you can own a fish or any type of pet you can handle a garden!