Gardening In Stages

So despite my allergy attack last week, I still braved the outdoors to get another round of gardening done. It's been a rough week for everyone, including in our news department. Nothing gets you in a better mood though than getting outside and muddy! Before I lay out what we've planted so far, I have to give my husband some major kudos. He recently did some major yard work to prepare our garden. First he did the typical mowing & weed-whacking. Then some simple landscaping to protect some of our plants that are in the yard.

Would you believe this is from my tiny echinacea from last year?!

We still had our two garden beds from last year. Thankfully the hubs did such an awesome job at tilling that we really didn't need to weed the area at all! We decided though to put in one more garden bed. Several of our crops (especially squash and zucchini) need to be rotated every year. Rotating crops helps your soil recover from all the nutrients that were once removed. A three year rotation works best for us so my husband tilled up and installed a third bed. Doesn't it look great?!

With that being said we stopped by a local nursery this weekend and picked out some of their early plants. There's still a few more I'd like to find. We have a whole garden bed that's blank! But we got a head start on some of our garden this weekend.

Our brand new garden bed as we figure out what goes where

Now I have to give Schmidt's Farm in Paducah, KY a decent shout out. We were able to get all of this for roughly $33:
- (3) Zucchini
- (3) Straight-neck summer squash
- (4) Jet Star Tomatoes
- (4) Jalapeno Peppers
- (4) California Wonder Bell Peppers
- (4) Garlic
- (1) Oregano
- Lots and lots of french dwarf marigolds and a few Inca marigolds
- Two small pots

 We were able to get everything in the ground Saturday. To keep my histamines at bay, I took up some more benadryl and tried something new: wearing goggles. I'm sure the whole neighborhood thinks I'm crazy. But hey, my eyes didn't end up burning like five thousand suns afterwards. So maybe it pays off to look like a science-kid.

Hubs was nice enough to take this unexpected photo

Over the next few weeks I'll share a few tricks of the trade to simple gardening. We will also have a few additions this year including (but not limited to) green beans, strawberries, and best of all: pie pumpkin! Feel free to share what you're growing this year along with any questions you have.