What Was I Thinking?!

Last year, after three years of research and poor planning, I went out on a limb and decided to start a garden. A full fledged, monstrous plot of land filled with every vegetable known to man, hoping and believing that it would be as lush and fruitful as the garden of Eden. Well, at least it started out that way.

When I was young, like under 10 years old, my great grandfather had this awesome garden in our backyard. He grew a ton of vegetables; tomatoes, squash, beans, and my favorite, fava beans. I always wanted to play in it, and once or twice he allowed me to go running through before kicking me out after a few minutes and several pokes and prods at fragile plants. I was hooked. 

Now, many years later, I don't have my great grandfather with us anymore but we still have the plot of land in the back that's now overrun with prickers and a strangely bent tree growing out of the once lush garden. I often looked out at that plot of land, remembering the rows and mounds of vines heavy laden with veggies and wondering whether or not I should venture out and start it myself. After all, what's so hard about growing some vegetables? You plant them, water them and boom, your grocery bill is cut in half. 

I finally was able to convince my family to venture out and buy a greenhouse; a large plastic 12 foot by 24 foot sauna sitting in the backyard holding 5 little plots of happiness. I read a lot of sources that said you should start small, but anyone who knows me knows that I don't do small. I go all the way all the time, and starting a garden was certainly not going to be a small 4x4 plot! 

We made our own raised beds from some cheap wood at Home Depot, spun our own lattice out of cotton twine, started some seeds in the basement and bought a couple of grape plants. And that, my friend, is where the adventure started. 

I'll be honest with you, some people start gardens and they take off, and you hear these lovely stories about how they had baskets of veggies and bunches of herbs. And that kind of sort of did not happen in this case. There were a couple of things I overlooked--ok, a lot of things I overlooked--and while I did get a good crop of tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers, I struggled a good deal with everything else. 

I was smart enough to take pictures (mostly for bragging rights to show everyone all the plants I grew that didn't die), but the computer I uploaded them on recently crashed and now I am stuck with no pictures. Just imagine a garden overflowing with plants that produced next to nothing and you'll have a pretty good idea of what we were working with.

Somewhere I read that it's good to journal your gardening as to not make the same mistakes twice, and while I didn't journal last year's garden, I am going to blog this years garden so not only do I not make the same mistake twice, YOU don't make the same mistakes! So here's to a new year, a new chance, and a new garden!