meet our garden

You might have met our garden before, but boy has it transformed since I last shared about it when we were readying the soil for the next season's harvest. We were also a bit traumatized by all the bugs and yucky things that ruined our Summer harvest, that Ben was determined to try to keep the bugs at bay this time around in a most natural way and try to avoid the need for any pesticides.

This was our garden in December:

Ben is indeed a planner. He always has been and always will be. Thus, we have 4 raised beds and he meticulously planned out all the seeds he would put and where. It is quite a site to see the work he put into making a map of our garden. I, on the other hand, would have just willy nilly tossed the seeds to and fro and covered it with dirt. Isn't that how we got apple trees? Didn't Johnny Appleseed do the same?

Our answer to keeping the bugs out, Ben created these arches using PVC pipes and purchased some gardening cloth that would go over it, but still let water and light in. My lack of proper gardening lingo just shows who really does the gardening around here. There is a drip system installed to make sure our little seedlings get some water to grow.

I am almost sure these tiny things are brussel sprout seeds.

Don't mind his crazy hair. We typically work on the garden first thing Saturday mornings, so we have bed head. I don't think the garden cares much about our looks.

This is our garden in January:

Meet our garden in February:

February was full of crazy rain, which was really good for our garden, as this is what our garden looks like in March:

We spent this past Saturday morning pulling weeds and harvesting because boy were some vegetables ready to be harvested! The broccoli rabe was so big that it was bulging out of the covering and was even taller than Brave!

Meet our kale.

Our cauliflower, and it is orange cauliflower, which is my favorite.

Our turnips.

Our cabbage.

Rainbow Swiss chard.

And of course, our giant broccoli rabe.

There are a plethora of other things, if you look closely at Ben's map, but that is all I remember so far.

We worked in the garden until it started raining, in which the girls and I danced and sang a bit in the rain (don't tell my Mom cause she would freak out and tell us we would get sick!), then Ben harvested some broccoli rabe and went in to cook us a yummy lunch.

We really love our garden. It is so nice to step out into our own backyard and get some ingredients to make a wonderfully healthy meal. I can't wait until some other things are ready to be harvested!

Here are some resources we used in the building of our garden:

Pat Welsh's Southern California Organic Gardening

Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening

If you think it is impossible for you to achieve this, don't think that. We don't live in the country with wide open spaces, but live in a suburb of a regular neighborhood, where most houses look alike, so a garden like this is definitely doable in just any plain, ordinary backyard. Plus, if you know anything about southern California backyards, well, ours is pretty small. We are definitely beginners at all this gardening stuff. If you want to see a few more pictures of our garden click here.

*****

Don't forget the giveaways.

*****