Getting Started on Spring

For the past couple of years I have had the goal of starting and maintaining a garden from which I could harvest a fair amount of produce. The first year was mostly experimenting with different plants, trying things out, figuring out how gardening works (which I continue to learn more about to this day). That first year had a small, but decent harvest, and the yard looked nice and green. However, last year I took quite a while building raised garden beds, and so not much was grown. This year, then, becomes the year that I will get back on track with this home garden.

Spring planting did not go as well as planned, and so my focus will be on tending the plants I did manage to plant until they are harvested, and then preparing for fall / winter planting (luckily I live where it is possible to plant just about year-round, and so it is possible to have a couple growing seasons a year) . To keep myself motivated, I'll be posting updates here every so often, with these first few back-dated posts (it's currently June) serving to update on the year up 'till now...

3-21-2011

Garlic Plants

At the beginning of winter last year I planted some garlic in this box right here. Only of few of them actually grew, and fewer became of any decent size before the summer heat forced me to harvest them. I'm thinking it had to do with the soil becoming really hard as time went on... Just a guess though...

Left Side of Yard

Here we have a lovely view of the left side of the yard, all torn up to find and repair a leak in the water pipes. The plants also look pretty dead after winter, and I haven't gotten around to trimming up the bushes yet... I should probably finish that up some time soon...
Anyways, I did manage to get the leak fixed, but recently it appears that a new leak has formed.

Chickens

and Chickens Again

Here we have the wonderful egg-producing, pest control force of the backyard. The main downside is keeping them from eating the veggies.

Right Side of Yard

This is a view of the right side of the yard, where we have the garden boxes being prepared for planting. The one on the bottom right is already planted with zucchini, red kuri squash and green beans. The other boxes got planted over the next few weeks (I got busy with school work).

Some Pots - I'll find something to fill them with... Eventually...