Stepping Stones & Garden Update

I painted a few stepping stones for the vegetable garden so I could actually reach the tomatoes. 

Who's Eating Broccoli?

I'm amazed that in just 7 weeks our vegetable garden goes from looking like this to that!

Before this garden, I never understood what sorts of joys come with planting and growing a garden. I never found any enjoyment trying to figure out what was a weed and what was a desirable plant.

Queen Anne's Lace: Not Just a Weed?

Yard work, mowing, weeds, watering, growing grass, and little baby vegetable plants are consuming all of my time.  It feels so good to be outside but my fingers hurt from pulling so many weeds!

Speaking of which, did you know that you can buy Queen Anne's Lace?!  I love this... plant? flower? weed?  But only because of sentimental reasons.

Check out all of that Queen Anne's Lace in the background! It has since become "our flower".  Every time we see it, (which is often since it's everywhere) we point it out to each other or think about one another.  

Gotta Get It In The Ground

"Gotta get it in the ground before the rain comes down!" That's a line my husband has been throwing around a lot recently from a country song he heard on the radio.  It's even cuter hearing our almost three year old say it!

Unfortunately, it started raining AS I was planting everything but I didn't let that stop me.  The rain felt strangely refreshing as I was digging in the ground.  

I picked up 7 different types of tomato plants (two of which are cherry tomatoes), 2 different cucumbers, broccoli, zucchini, summer squash, red, yellow, orange, and green bell peppers, romaine, red romaine, spinach, and a few herbs.  I am really hopeful that we'll have quite the crop this summer.

Friday Find

As I prepare to get some vegetables in the ground, I'm trying to do my homework.  Gardening does not come naturally to me.  I wish it did, but it's really like an overwhelming foreign language.  I'd much rather pick a paint color, put it on the wall, and say, "Yup... that's what I expected to happen."  With gardening, there are too many variables.  Soil condition, weather, plants, bugs, diseases...  I guess it's going to have to just be a trial and error process.

Well, in my search for vegetable garden information, I came across this set of charts that break down which vegetables do best hanging out next to each other.  I'm going to attempt to plant my veggies as close to this chart that I can, but I'm not making any promises.  Who knows what's going to happen once I start digging around in that dirt.

Download the full Companion Planting Chart Here by My Square Foot Garden

Do you try to plant your vegetables with companions?  Do you notice any differences?  What's your favorite combination?

Janice