Back in March 2020, aka the first wave of the COVID quarantine, I got really into working in the backyard as a way to encourage myself to make time to go outside. Between Richie and I, we managed to take back the wild back corner from the miniature forest of weeds, chicken trees, and other invasive plants. We attempted to regrow grass in that corners, and it took for a bit. However, the lack of nutrients in the soil caused it to not take for very long.
Fast forward a year later, and Richie and the girls got me a diy box planter for Mother’s Day 2021. The kiddos helped him put it together for me while I was at work, and I was so excited when I saw it! The three of them tilled up the dirt, and we laid down some cardboard boxes to help stop weeds from coming through.
We got 10 lbs of soil from the blue box hardware store, and we bought our vegetables from a local gardener. I pretty much did the rest of the garden myself. Richie helped unload the truck, but I opened and placed all 10lbs of soil. Arya helped me dig some of the holes for the plants, but I did most of the planning and digging, and planting.
We actually have a vlog from the day we planted the vegetable garden:
We originally planted:
- Tomatoes
- Yellow squash
- Zucchini
- Sweet banana peppers
- Eggplant
- Cucumbers (though we put those in later because they needed to grow a bit more before they were put in the ground)
Thanks to the dogs, our squash, zucchini, and eggplant plants were all either squashed or almost dug out. Either way, they died. The tomato plants grew high, but they have never produced anything to this day.
In fact, out of everything we planted, only 2 of the vegetables ever produced anything: cucumbers and sweet banana peppers
Now that it’s fall, the cucumber plant is slowly wilting and not producing near as much as it used to. However, the peppers are still thriving nicely.
I saw some recommendations about certain vegetables being perfect for planting in autumn such as lettuce, broccoli, and carrots. The girls had a blast planting the seeds, and some are starting to germinate. I’ve even started thinning the plants out a bit to give them more room to grow.
I’ve learned a lot about gardening over the past few years, and I’m still managing to kill fair share of them, it’s super satisfying preparing dinner and snacks using the literal fruit of your labor.
