Not to be outdone by the Easter Garden the grand-kids in Illinois (zone 6a) planted a garden with their mom for Mother’s Day. Let’s join Kristen for a quick tour…
We started prepping our garden back at the end of April. If we wanted to we could call our little garden the Secret Garden because it is hidden from view in the side yard of the neighborhood church’s 2-flat. Most people don’t even know there are garden plots back there unless they are brave enough to ask the right question to the right person. It is a perfect little spot for us amongst a few people lucky enough to get a spot. Our patch is roughly 8’x16’. We used the boards from a section of old fencing to build the retaining border and used drywall screws to secure the boards to wooden stakes we drove into the ground with a hammer. This proves that you can build a garden bed with just about anything you have on hand. It doesn’t have to be perfect or Pinterest worthy.
While we were digging through the soil to put in the raised bed boarders we found tons of worms doing their work, which was such a good sign. Our son made it his job to find as many as possible and ended up finding the biggest worm any of us had ever seen in life. Even with all the worms the soil here is full of clay. We amended the soil with manure and compost. Our daughter just couldn’t believe we were planting seeds in poop. We assured her it was ‘clean’ poop but that didn’t help.
On Mother’s Day we joined the throngs of people at Home Depot and purchased three tomato plants and a red bell pepper start along with seeds for watermelon, cucumber, carrots, beans, lettuce and spinach. Because of our small space, we chose bush varieties for the melons, cucumber and beans. Just like the Easter Garden we also found seed tape for the spinach.
Back at the garden we laid out the seed packets to find the best placement for each vegetable. Because of how the sun travels over the garden we chose to forego traditional rows and plant in groups instead. With the tallest plant, the beans, in the middle and the vines in the corners, so they could spill out over the edge if needed, I’m hoping the design will make the best of the sunny hours. When the time comes to stake up the tomatoes and beans I want to take a page from the Planstwoman show garden and use metal tubing to prop them up.
Since planting the garden we had a week of 85+ degree weather which really gave our seeds a good start. It has been chilly and wet since then but the sprouts fighting their way up through the soil.
What have you planted in your garden this spring?
