With silver bells and cockle shells

We planted a vegetable garden this year. It's very exciting. We didn't start early enough to do tomatoes (or bell peppers) from seed, so here's what we started with:

• 3 rows of lettuce
• 3 rows of petite carrots
• 2 rows of cucumbers
• 2 tomato plants
• 2 red bell pepper plants
• 2 green bell pepper plants
• 1 jalapeño plant
• 4 rows of green beans
• 2 rows of zucchini

Now, when I say "rows", I only mean about 2 1/2 feet long. That's how wide our garden is, so it's really not as much as it sounds like.

We've already had a few bumps and learning moments. My mother-in-law told me that lettuce should be staggered in its planting. It germinates quickly, so rather than planting all at once, it should be planted every week or every other week, rotating so that the grower will always have fresh lettuce instead of a ton all at once. Apparently radishes should be done similarly. Now we know for next year. However, when our lettuce is ready, you're welcome to share in it with us.

Second, I would have been happy with one row of cucumber. I like it, but I don't know what I'm going to do with two rows of it. (Side note: Ben is the one who did the actual planting, so in his words "I just planted all the seeds.") I wish we had done more tomato and bell peppers, and maybe a second jalapeño bush. I don't know yet how much jalapeño we'll get, so one might be adequate -- I don't know. I like fresh green beans (and so does Julie), but without a big freezer or proper canning equipment, four rows is somewhat excessive (again, Ben just planted all the seeds there were). I love to make (and eat) zucchini bread, so I actually would have liked at least one more row of this. And the carrots, well, I'm not really a carrot person. I have fond memories of being a young girl and going to the garden in the backyard with my dad, pulling up a carrot together, taking it inside and washing it off, then splitting it and enjoying a snack together. But I don't really like carrots. Ben seemed insistent though.

We also want to grow onions and garlic (garlic can be frozen -- did you know that?), but they are bulbs that get planted in the fall, so we don't have any this year.

My mother-in-law told me that she has an extra waterbath canner that I can have (I'm going to visit later this month). With it I can do jams/jellies, applesauce and other fruits, and tomatoes, but not meats or vegetables. I'll need a pressure canner for those (including green beans). We may buy one this year, I'm not sure yet.

Next year I think we'll stagger our lettuce, reduce the carrot and cucumber quantities, go down to two rows of green beans (depending on if we get that canner or not), add another row or two of zucchini, and get more tomatoes and peppers. Oh, and we'll have the onion and garlic also. Sounds like salsa!

We also want to do an indoor herb garden, but there are some concerns. (1) Basil likes to be really warm, so an air conditioned house might not be the best for it. (2) Basil gets huge, so it might be impractical to contain indoors. (3) Oregano -- from what I've read -- can be grown indoors if you put it under a grow light for 12 hours a day. (4) I'm concerned about bugs.

Cilantro can be easily grown indoors. Thyme and chives are the other two I'd like to do, both of which I think are pretty low maintenance and easily doable indoors.

On to some pictures. I don't have a very good "before" picture of the backyard, so this will have to suffice. If you notice off on the left, there's a tall hedge along the edge of our yard. Ben pulled that out last summer, roots and all.


Earlier this year, when the weather was starting to turn warm but hadn't quite decided for sure yet, he got rid of any leftover grass in our garden space so that he could install the garden.


After that, Ben got some landscaping lumber and built the framework for a raised bed, then filled it with topsoil. It sat for a couple of weeks before we were able to get back to it again to actually plant anything.


What you can't see in the above picture is the sand pit at the end of the garden bed. It's not a play area for Julie. It's a Dutch oven cooking pit. Yes, we're a little weird. We own two Dutch ovens, and use them less frequently than Ben would like. But now we have a space in which to use them outdoors, which is kinda fun. It's definitely unique.


These are a few weeks old by now. This is our lettuce, just peaking through.


And the cucumber.


By now everything is coming up and growing well. It's really neat to watch. I enjoy seeing it change.