It finally feels like it might be turning into spring for real around here and I’m starting to think about gardening. I meant to start from seeds this year, but as usual, time kind of got away from me and I wasn’t able to do so.

Last year, we had just decided to buy our house, so I ended up using a container gardening system. It worked pretty well, we had a ton of jalapeno peppers, a fair amount of tomatoes, and fresh herbs. Two years ago, I grew tomatoes and basil on an apartment balcony and got enough to make Caprese salad for a party. This year, I’m hoping to beat both of those years.

We are planning out a raised bed using cinder blocks. We’ve got a space about 5 feet by 16 feet marked out right now and know how many cinder blocks we will need. We’re planning on digging down a bit of the dirt, so we have enough space for the plants to grow. I’m excited for the garden, but not necessarily for the digging part. The spot is along our side fence and we’ll leave enough room to walk around it to weed. It gets mostly all sun, with some shade in the afternoon. I used this website to get some ideas for garden beds.

https://www.weedemandreap.com/12-raised-garden-beds/

So far our list is probably pretty ambitious. I’ve grown or attempted to grow most of these before, so hopefully the garden will be good. I’ve also got some friends who are excellent gardeners, as is my Mom, so I should have enough support if it all goes horribly wrong. 🙂

We’re trying to grow the things we most commonly eat. It doesn’t make sense to grow things like pumpkins or beans, as the Husband doesn’t eat them, so it would just be me. We are growing zucchini though, because I can shred them into soups and things and the Husband will eat it that way.

Our list:

Cucumbers, lettuce, onions, hot peppers, bell peppers, garlic, carrots, zucchini, and tomatoes.

I go through canned tomatoes like water sometimes, so if we can grow some to can as well, it would be a very good thing. I am expecting to buy some canning tomatoes still, but we can try to at least get a good start.

These are some of the cherry tomatoes I grew last year. I had a really cool variety called Indigo Rose, the bigger ones, which start out black and gradually turn red. They seemed to have a richer flavor than regular cherry tomatoes.

Herbs on the list:

Basil, Thai Basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, parsley, and chocolate mint. I’m sure there are some more that I will see and immediately want to grow, but these will be a good start.

The herbs may be grown around the edges in pots, depending on how much room we have. The chocolate mint will be put in a pot and kept very controlled. The Husband says I shouldn’t grow mint, but I have Christmas present plans for it…

I also have this cookbook called Cooking From the Gourmet’s Garden that is herb based and I’m excited to grow my own herbs to use in the recipes. They all look so fancy and intimidating!

Two things that concern me are the skunk that seems to come around about once a month and the squirrels that are constantly around.

Last year, one of the squirrels kept eating my tomatoes halfway and leaving them by the door for me to find. What a jerk! He stopped when I started sprinkling cayenne pepper over all my tomatoes with great glee. I like to imagine his imagine his reaction at the first spiced tomato that he bit into.

As for the skunk, some friends use a dog safe deterrent, so I think we’ll try that and see how it works. I haven’t smelled the skunk in a while, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still around, or won’t be attracted to the food.

We are planning to start composting again. We did for a while, but it was too difficult in the apartment, so the bin got retired to my in laws’ house. This year we are planning to get a compost tumbler to make it easier on both of us. Hopefully, this will get our trash down. We’re already doing pretty good with this, most of our trash gets recycled, but it will be nice to do it again. And as a plus, we’ll be making more food for the garden.

I’ve been exploring natural pest control options lately too. Since we have Fancy, we want to make sure that everything we use is pet safe, especially as she has been wanting to be outside more. We’re hoping she doesn’t decide the garden is her new digging spot, so we’ve got some fencing options lined up already. I’m planning on companion planting to encourage good growth and using marigolds around the edges to stop some of the bugs. What other methods are out there for natural pest control?

Those are all our plans for the garden. Hopefully we can get things done in the next couple of weekends and can get started soon!

A small sewing update: I did get the Rainbow Snowball quilt ironed today, but the backing flannel needs to be washed before I can use it. It is very red and may run, so I need to find my other similarly colored fabrics and do a big load. I also got my sewing machine set up downstairs again and unpacked a sewing crate to add to my shelves. No pictures, as is all in the basement, and there is no good lighting down there. It felt good to get it a little more organized.