I thought long and hard about whether I should put this in general discussions or here, and ultimately decided that gardening is *so* good for both mental and physical well-being and eating home grown produce is as healthy as a diet can get, so I'd post it here. I would love to hear from and chat with other gardeners so I have somewhere else besides my journal to talk about my garden lol. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or you're trying your hand at growing some herbs on your windowsill or balcony for the first time, I would love to hear about your gardening endeavours
About me: I've been gardening for a few years but never *super* successfully. I'm determined this is the year for a bountiful harvest. I didn't get to garden at all last year and the year before was my first year growing in a Canadian climate. The soil I filled my beds with was crap and I didn't have much yield so this year I am making sure to use quality soil on my new beds and am adding lots of fish compost to my old beds. I live with my MIL and she took her garden back last year but only ended up using half of it, so this year she has given me half of it back, and I have been given free reign to plant anywhere in the backyard that I want. There isn't a lot of areas in the backyard that get at least 4 hours of sun but I'm making the most of it.
I love this! Lol I’m planning out my garden right now. What are you planting this year? Do you grow from seed or buy plants? I have never not had some sort of garden. Growing up my dad always planted a huge garden and it always felt good going out to pick things for dinner or snacks. I can’t say I enjoyed taking care of it as a kid, but weeding and picking was a chore that I didn’t hate either. He has a green thumb so it always turned out great. My mom would can or freeze the veggies to have all year. When I moved out we lived in an apt,but I had to have something so I would do some herbs or a tomato plant on the deck. Then I got a job as a supervisor at a group home. My one guy loves watching everyone taking care of their yards and there was a raised garden bed so I put a few things in it to start. The next year I cleared out another area. It’s kind of grown over the past few years. This year I’m changing it up a little and researching how to grow things like iceberg, kale, and spinach. I’ll also do zucchini, squash, tomato, peppers(green and jalapeño), we have some onion, and a few herb planters. I’m only planting 1-2 of each so we can do more of a variety. My house is a little harder. It’s funny that it’s harder to grow here because we live on a farm. We don’t own the farm, we rent a house. Our landlords are chicken farmer so they use the land for corn, soybean, and wheat. Our house is in a bad spot because our yard gets flooded on one side and the ground has a lot of rocks from the rock driveway. We’re also not allowed to dig up ground. So I have a raised garden bed. I’m going to do tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, peppers(green), green beans, and eggplant. It’s more for the fun of taking care of a garden and having things to pick to eat in the summer than an abundance right now. I don’t have the space to can and freeze. We’re also fortunate enough to live in a farming community where everyone sells fresh produce, eggs, and whatnot at stands. My daughters school also has an outdoor classroom and they have events through the summer where we can go pick some produce.
That's so wonderful you've always managed to garden, even when you were in an apartment. I remember growing up with a small garden, but not every year. My grandparents had a huge one though and we loved visiting them. Grandpa would say "where shall we go shopping today?" As he'd bring out the collection of grocery bags and we'd pick a store brand and head out to the garden to pick our dinner I didn't attempt to garden at all from the time I moved out until my eldest was born when I was 27 - we lived in apartments without even a balcony. When my eldest was a baby I got the itch to garden, but wasn't allowed in the rental unit we lived in (three dwelling house with a tiny unfenced shared yard. Just before my second was born we moved to the upper floor of a similar unit and I had a lovely big patio to attempt to garden on, tried many times over the two years we lived there, but never had success getting anything to grow. Had a container garden in free styrofoam boxes at our next place. And that did ok until we got chickens and ducks and discovered they go crazy over styrofoam . They were far more interested in eating the styrofoam than the crops themselves, but the result was the same when the boxes started falling apart. The next place we lived at for 4 years, and it was a rented farm house on a 300acre cattle ranch. We had a 3/4 acre block I had great plans for, but I did things wrong and we were too poor to do things properly. We ended up with goats and a big flock of chickens and no proper fencing solution for my garden, so despite a valient beginning every spring, nothing ever made it to harvest between the chickens and goats lol. Our last year there we'd gotten rid of the goats and had a chicken proofed fence around the garden, which were metal raised beds. It was growing beautifully and finally a productive thriving garden - but we didn't get to enjoy a harvest from it as we ended up needing to make a sudden international move when FIL was diagnosed with cancer . We ended up living with MIL (and still do, but in an RV in the back yard for the last year) and the first year we were here she let me take over her raised garden beds in the front yard. She has a greenhouse and was happy just growing in that. I had 7 big beds that were half empty so I bought a truckload of raised bed soil that came highly recommended , but I was not impressed with, it was hydrophobic and totally lifeless (two years on its barely even growing weeds) but for whatever reason I didnt end up adding compost to help - or I did but it was cheap bagged stuff that wasn't of enough benefit. I made homemade fertilizer using coffee beans, banana peels, egg shells and magnesium flakes (the former three dehydrated in the oven) and then blended in the food processor. I started everything from seed that year on a shelf inside with lights and it should have been an amazing garden with all the effort I put into it. But the soil was just so bad that nothing thrived and grew super well. All the plants were so stunted and while we did get a harvest from everything we planted it was just terribly meagre. Last year I wasn't able to garden at all. MIL took her front garden back (and then only planted in two or three of the beds). I was in limbo all year because there are two big trees shading the whole backyard that MIL was planning to have taken down - January 2022. They would have opened up a nice big sunny area for me to have my own garden, but the tree guy never showed up, and a year later MIL finally gave up and had someone else come check them out,and he recommended only trimming them. Which still would have opened up a reasonable sized area to garden, but she didn't follow up on getting that done either... There is one sliver of backyard that gets 4-5 hours of sun before the tree blocks it so I had planned to at least build a 3x12 bed there and a plastic kiddie pool and grow some shade tolerant veggies. And then MIL gave me three of the beds from the front garden that I built trellises for to use this year as well so I will be able to grow things that require full sun (yay!) And she's given me permission to pull out all the shrubbery growing next to the fence and put in a flower garden to attract pollinators (just doing a wildflower mix, nothing fancy) and if I can source some more free materials I hope to get another couple beds built in the top garden if MIL agrees, as there is still plenty of space to add more. The entire yard is sheer rock with a couple inches of topsoil so raised beds are a must here as well. I've amended all the existing beds with fish compost ready for planting this week, and built and filled a 2x3 box made from free recycled shelves, with a 3x12 bed to finish building this week from reclaimed fence boards.and a kiddie pool. So those three beds will be for my lettuce, spinach, swiss chard and other greens, and a few cauliflower and broccoli. I've started a few tomato, pepper and basil seeds inside, but living in an RV space is definitely at a premium and I can only get two small trays (a little bigger combined area than a traditional 10x20 tray) inside on my countertop under a light. But almost everything has come up so far . I've picked up a few starts (cauliflower, swiss chard, lettuce and spinach) and may get a few more starts when the summer plants can go in (not til late may early June here, even though our last frost date is this week we have long cool springs) but hoping to grow from as much seed as I can. I want to grow all the things but being realistic and sticking with greens, carrots (hoping for lots of carrots), beets, a few turnips, peppers (sweet), tomatoes, cucumbers and peas. A couple garbage cans for potato towers. And a zucchini. Oh and we have a sunny section of fenceline by our driveway that I'm going to attempt a three sisters style garden along - it will have to be in a line rather than in traditional mounds, but I want to do corn and beans along the fence line and then let a few pumpkins vine down the 3 foot hill and help shade out the weeds.
Sounds like a great start! I’m excited to hear how it all turns out. I ordered a 8ftx2ft raised garden bed(I added a picture) from Amazon. I have another square garden bed, but it isn’t as high. I think I’ll do the zucchini and squash in the square one and the deeper rooted plants like tomato and peppers in the higher one. At work I pulled everything out from last year to get ready. I’m going to do all the basics in the regular garden bed and I cleared another one for some new stuff I’ve never done. I’m going to attempt leafy greens like kale, lettuce, and spinach there. It says I should have planted them already so if I can find them at the greenhouse nursery. We have some Amish ones around that usually sell already started plants for cheap. Should be able to get everything in this week. I always say I’m going to start early then time seems to speed up this time of year. Lol I may or may not attempt cucumbers…they never work out. No issues with pollination here. We have so many bees and butterflies. I could do without the wasps though. My landlords love to come and spray “weeds” without letting us know or asking so anything outside of obvious gardens so I don’t bother doing anything else. I had an awesome strawberry patch. I worked so hard pinching flowers the first year and the second we got so many strawberries. Then I went out one day and they had sprayed them all. I was so sad. I understand they do certain things to protect their big crops and what the cows in the meadow eat, it’s just a bummer when you’re reminded it’s not your own. One day we will have our own little property! I would love to have some chickens and a few other animals,
My garden is looking great, I harvested my first salad last night and having another from the garden tonight . We've had an early heatwave that I hope doesn't wipe out all my cold weather crops, but since most of them are in a garden thst only gets 4-6 hours of sunlight and are in shade from 2/3pm onwards I'm hoping they will pull through. About two more weeks til I put my summer crops in. I started some tomatoes and peppers inside but they really haven't done very well in my setup so I will have to buy some starts. I figured I'd have to since I don't have room to have a proper seed starting shelf with grow lights, but at least I gave it a shot. The fish compost I topped all my beds with this year seems to be helping a lot. My MIL topped her beds with mushroom compost and even though everything I planted was a couple weeks behind what MIL planted, my garden has caught up to hers.
