I've always enjoyed gardening and have done quite well in my attempts. My grandmother always had a great garden (vegetable and floral) which is where my parents tell me I get my "green thumb" from. Ever since I was young I had a vegetable garden. My parents had a tiered box garden where we grew a few varities of vegies. When I moved out of the house and started renting places I took my garden with me. It was just in the form of 5 gallon buckets. Want to know how I did that??? Email me!!
At my home I have landscaping which I love to take care of but my vegetable garden is my non-biological pride and joy. My garden is where I can go when I need a moment away from everything. It relaxes me. When my wife and I moved into this house I immediately started planning on how I could put a garden in my smaller back yard. I decided to build a raised bed for my garden. Using landscaping timbers I build an 8'x24' garden. I even put in an irrigation system. I'll post pictures of my garden in a few days. I also helped my parents build and set up an 8'x24' raised bed garden.
The past few years I've met people who also share the love of gardening and enjoying the fruits of their labor. I've even been fortunate enough to share my harvest with people I work with. God gave me more than I needed so I shared. I think I even have a few people waiting on me to grow more!!!
Last year I grew over 2000 cherry tomatos from four plants! Anyone who came to my house left with a bag of tomatos. I decided I needed to find something to with those cherry tomatos besides just washing them off and eating them like candy (which there is NOTHING wrong with). I found a few recipes and combined a few to create my own way to make sun-dried tomatos out of them. Wanna know what I did??? Ask me!
I had a garden full of other fruits and vegies in my garden as well. Just my tomatos alone I had sizes ranging from nickle size to over a pound! Last year I had the following plants: four cherry tomato, two big boy tomato, two beefmaster tomato, two celebrity tomato, two roma tomato, four banana pepper, four cucumber, two eggplant, one green bell pepper, one yellow bell pepper, one red bell pepper, 2 zucchini, 6 squash, and two jumbo jalapeno. Yes... all of that was in one 8'x24' garden. Needless to say I had plenty to share. I also planted tomatos, squash, jalapenos, and bush beans in my parents' garden as well.
This winter I decided to plant a winter garden because, well, why not? There was a perfectly good garden sitting there empty and begging to be planted. So I planted 9 broccoli and 18 collard greens. I was able to pick the greens several times and put aside enough to last me a few months while sharing with my family and a friend. The broccoli was a fun experiment because it was my first time to grow it but I won't be planting it again next Winter.
This past weekend I scraped the top 1-1 1/2 inches off the garden to kill some of the weeds. Soon I will get the mulch, fertilizer, and nutrients to get the garden ready but that will be another post.
I have never started a garden from seed. I usually purchase plants to plant. After working for a local landscaping company I became interested in growing from seeds so I started by attempting to seed an Iris. Well, 120 baby Iris later I decided I would try to do part of my vegie garden from seed as well. Since Louisiana has such consistent weather (insert sarcasm) I realized I couldn't start seeds outside. I did a little research and decided I am going to try to start the seeds using the paper towel method which is a faster way to germinate. What I did was moisten paper towels and place seeds on one half and fold the other half over to seal over the seeds. Once the seeds are sealed I put them in bags and sealed them. I set them out of the way and will check on them every day or so to see if any have started sprouting which means they are ready to be put in dirt!
The picture below shows most of what I am going to plant in my garden. From seeds I hope to grow zucchini, squasy, giant green bell pepper, Supersweet hybrid 100 cherry tomatos, Big Red Heirloom tomatos, and Abe Lincoln Heirloom tomatos. I also plan to plant cucumbers, jumbo jalapenos, and possibly something else but I'm just not sure if there will be room! Some of these seeds are destined for my parents' garden so I can plant my extra stuff there!!!
This is my first blog but I'm excited to be doing it. I'm excited to share my passion with others and maybe I can even answer a question or two you might have. If I can't answer it we will learn together. See you in a few days when I check the seeds for germination.
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