We love gardening and having access to fresh vegetables and herbs! We used to have gardens in the ground, but this year, we're trying out a patio garden with all our favorite hot peppers, tomatoes, and herbs. We can't wait to see how it turns out!
Last Garden we had!!!
When we lived in Maine, we had an Amazing Garden. It grew so well and produced a ton of veggies and herbs. We didn't start any plants in the house. All the tomato and pepper plants were purchased from a local nursery. Let me tell you, the cherry tomato plants were awesome! There wasn't a great selection of pepper plants, but we still found some Jalapeño peppers. It took forever for the pepper plants to grow. The growing season in Maine is very short.
Frank, Groundhogs, and the Garden
When the local Groundhog decided he wanted to enjoy our lettuce and peas, we had to put up a fence. Then one dreaded, very hot, July morning, the Groundhog was trying to get into the garden for breakfast. Frank was faster than the groundhog. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a groundhog out of a dog's mouth?!?!? Well, that was after Frank and Oliver played a "pulley game" with the groundhog. And we chased them all over the yard. We had 2 ½ acres!!!! We were both dressed for work. . . needless to say, we worked from home that day. Frank may be a little "Fluffy" side, but he's very fast and was very sassy that day!!! Of all the times not to have my camera!
Second planting
The lettuce, spinach, peas, squash, cucumbers, and chard grew great with the second planting! At the time, we didn't really know what to do with the chard, and the groundhog didn't bother with it! Looking back, it was some of the prettiest rainbow chard ever. Since then, we have come up with so many ways to use chard. My favorite recipe is Acorn Squash stuffed with Rainbow Chard -So fresh and yummy. I can't wait for our garden this year. And yes, we will have a fence.
Since we are going to be moving, I'm not sure if we'll be in our house in time to plant lettuce, spinach, and chard. Hopefully, there will be the opportunity to plant them later in the summer. That was one of the great things about living in Maine: we were able to plant Lettuce and Spinach twice since it doesn't get super hot in the summer.
Oliver was a great helper.
His favorite thing was the sugar snap peas. But when they were gone, he would "steal" the Yellow Squash. He never ate the squash he just loved to carry them from the garden to the house. I guess that was his "job". So cute!!!! As you can see, the other boys couldn't care less. They were more interested in playing in the swimming pool.
The seeds sprouted!!!
This year, we're starting our garden inside, and after 7 days, the seeds we planted are now baby plants!!! So all of the tomatoes, except for 3 pots, had at least two plants in them. (YAY!!!) It's so cool this worked!! We have never grown plants in the house, so when we started the plants, we read that the pots needed to be covered. It was a Saturday afternoon when we planted the seeds, and we each had a glass of wine. We came up with a brilliant idea. Use Saran Wrap to cover the pots. We figured that should work as well as any plastic covers we could buy, and it was a heck of a lot cheaper!!!
The Saran Wrap worked great. It acted just like a miniature Green House.
So Excited to see we have plants!!!
We put the plants under the light stand and flipped on the lights. Yes, it was an exciting moment. Just look how happy Amy is. Now, that smile might be from the wine, but I'm pretty sure she is excited about the plants!
Now, we have to wait for the pepper plants. We do check them every day (sometimes twice a day). It does sound like pepper plants take about 2 weeks, and I did read Habaneros could take even longer. If you have any experience starting peppers inside, let us know what happened.
Are you starting any plants in the house? We'll be sharing all of our garden adventures, and it's going to be an adventure since we're going to buy a house soon and will be moving in the next few months. I hope we move in time to plant some early spring plants like lettuce and spinach!!
Please let us know what you think