Gardening Lessons I Have Learned This Year… so far

This was our first year of having a full garden on The Freckled Farm. The year that we bought the property we tried to plant one, but failed miserably. We went into the project with little knowledge about soil, plants, timing… anything gardening really. Little sprouts came up, then died off from overall neglect. Over the next few years we did select herbs and other plants with varied degrees of success. I wasn’t willing to undergo the big project again while dealing with pregnancies and newborns, so we waited until this year. The season isn’t even over yet and I have learned so much…

We started setting up the fencing for our garden last fall, but weren’t able to finish it. We finished the fencing and built 5 beds late winter, then filled the beds with compost, manure (mostly from the llamas), and top soil. I ordered non-gmo and organic seeds from Botanical Interests, although we did end up with a few nursery started plants in the garden.

1. Start with the best – We started by purchasing the bagged topsoil from Southern States, but it was getting expensive so we decided to go with the bulk dirt that they scoop into the back of your truck from one of those dirt and gravel places to finish off the remaining beds. The dirt wasn’t great quality, I’m sure we could have found better, but I thought I would be able to improve the quality if the dirt with the compost and manure. After working with it for a few weeks before planting it improved quite a bit, but I can’t help to think it would have been less work and our plants would have been even healthier if I started out with better soil. So the lesson here – If you are using raised beds start with a good base. Don’t just get the cheapest available in hopes of improving it. 
2. Don’t give up, even if looks like it’s over – I decided to try growing my tomato plants from seed this year. I had been warned many times over about how difficult it was and that I should not beat myself up if I ended up resorting to nursery started plants. I started a set and killed them off a few weeks later. I started again and had much stronger, healthier plants. I put them in the garden a week past the average last frost date, but as luck would have it we had one last frost. We covered them up to protected them from the frost, but they still wilted away over the next week. That weekend we went and purchased tomato plants from a local nursery. I was feeling defeated as I pulled out all of the almost dead plants to make room for the new ones. I left one of the plants I started from seed because I had one less purchased plants than I did seed plants… I figured I would see what came of it. As the new plants grew, so did the seed plant. Now it’s just as big as the others and producing wonderfully. I wish I had kept the other plants. I had planted varieties that I was really excited about.
3. Don’t over water – This should be a given, but I got a little over excited with my seedlings and killed off my first set of tomatoes and onions.
4. Raised beds are awesome – I am so glad we decided on raised beds. It’s a bit of a cost up front, and you have less space than you would otherwise, but it’s been well worth it. It’s been great for weed control and you get control of the quality of the soil put in the beds rather than trying to correct the soil you have… in our case red clay.
5. Vine plants are going to sprawl… a lot – I thought I had given the “sprawling” plants lots of room, but apparently I was wrong. The beans continue to grow and are all out of lattice (I managed to get them to move over to the fence), the cucumbers are all over the place, and don’t get me started on the watermelon. Next year I am planning to have all of the sprawling plants vertical, not just the beans, and I may plant less plants.
6. Routine is key – The issue last time we tried a full garden was that I would just forget about the garden. Life would happen and I would miss days of weeding and pest control. I wouldn’t check everyday to see if the garden needed water and didn’t think about how the weather was effecting my plants. Now that the farm is up and running I already have an outdoors routine to care for the animals. I just added the garden into the routine and it is flourishing because of that.

I think I have found my green thumb! It’s a great feeling. I love going out to the garden and assessing the changes that happened since the day before. Plants I would have never thought I could grow successfully are flurishing. We started small with 5 beds this year but have big plans to expand by 6 more beds next year. One day I hope to live off our garden. That dream seems a lot more possible after this year

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