Our Backyard Homestead

Backyard Homestead, no. Our garden, yes. We have decided to do 2 raised beds this year as it is our first garden here in our new home. Drew masterfully put together the beds and painted them with the help of the girls. Then, Evie and MF added some embellishments in the form of blue paint to "personalize" them. Drew got them ready with some dirt and potting soil last night. He also bought some lettuce, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, yellow peppers, banana peppers, and a sugar baby watermelon (all starts) to add to our green bean, collard green, and basil seeds. Tonight was the night for planting!

Getting ready. Bring it on, Dad!
"Um, do you girls know what you're doing?"

"I tell ya, I just love my exersaucer!"

Show us that squash plant, Mary Fran!

In the bed closest to the house (which gets more sun) we decided to plant (from left to right) yellow squash, watermelon, banana peppers, yellow peppers, and zucchini along the back.

In the second bed we planted cucumbers on the left, then bean seeds in the forefront and collards in the back. What is that stuff on top you ask? Well, it's landscape paper. I had read about putting cardboard or newspaper on top of your soil to help keep the water in and choke the weeds out. Low maintenance garden...my kind of garden. We had some landscape paper and thought that would do the trick. We found out quickly that it doesn't absorb the water, therefore, it was promptly removed. We are going to mulch it with pine straw and hope that keeps the weeds down. Our lettuce and basil was planted up in the front yard with our other plants (including chives) and the tomatoes are going to be potted on the back deck.

Having fun watering!

The girls and Ward had a great time "helping." We are excited about this new adventure. As Drew says, this will be a "kitchen garden" with the idea that we will have enough harvest to eat off of but not so much to can. We'll still get fresh, bulk, local produce for that. Maybe we'll be wrong, though, and have a high enough yield to put some up for the winter. We'll see!