Our Garden Is Finally Coming Together

After months of wondering if we would even have a garden this year, we started kicking around the idea of creating a space out back to rival last year’s spot.  For those that dont’ know (n00bs), we moved this past year after only being at our house for a year (a loooooong story) – so we haven’t had much time to get a garden figured out here at our new house.

Over the last couple months we have built 2 raised beds, 1 onion row (raised) and also purchased some barrels to do some gardening in also.  We still plan a third raised bed, but for now we felt the urge to put it all together and see how it turned out.  We had everything close to the backdoor, because our frost date hadn’t passed… so we didn’t want to keep lugging them 25 ft. each time it was going to get cold.

Well… I think the freezing has past, so yesterday Shala said…

“You know, I wish we had all this stuff where it is going to go.  And we had a nice lil spot to sit and relax by our garden.”

In a matter of 10 minutes it felt like, we had whooped it into shape and we had that spot she said she wanted.  Here is a picture of our garden area at the moment, obviously still a work in progress.

With everything sorta in place (if you will), we were surprised at how it really is coming together and doesn’t look so hodge-podge after all.  Just to break it down for you, lets go into each section. Here is the first picture heading out the back gate.

This pic shows 3 of the 5 barrels (2 of them are still waiting to get something planted in), and one of the 2 raised beds we have built (and of course we want a third).  The barrels are as follows (front to back): potatoes, potatoes & a three sisters garden.  If your not familiar with the three sisters garden, click here and read more.  At the moment we have the corn in place and have planted the beans around it.  Squash is growing indoors to get a jump on things. To the right we have nothing planted just yet, but we plan to have veggies of course.  Expect lots of Tomatoes & such.

This next picture, you can see the second raised bed, which also has yet to see anything planted – but should have okra, tons of peppers.

You might be able to tell, but in between the two long raised beds, we recently planted a Spanish Broom (Spartium junceum) and we put a cage around it to protect it from our giant ghost-like dog that runs the fence like a lunatic sometimes.  When it gets a lil bigger, we will pull the cage.  Here is a better picture of it by itself…

The blooms are SUUUUUuuper fragrant, and we are hoping it will attract bees for the garden.  Who would have thought after all these years of being scared of bees, we would be basically calling them on the phone or texting them and seeing if they want to hang out.  BFFs.

Now to the next part, the relaxation section of the garden.  A spot that we feel is important for any garden to prosper.  Without a spot to sit back and relax in… and enjoy your work – a garden isn’t really a garden is it?  Nope.

You can see the onion row just on the left of the picture, we added that last weekend, just to the right of it on the cement we have our lime tree, it is in the process of getting all its new leaves, so it is naked.  Please excuse it, and you are probably thinking it isn’t there at all – but it is.  Just hard to see.  It’s tall and lanky.  Then of course our lil spot to sit and relax.  My (James’) Mom made that table, and we have had it forever it seems now.  The chairs, just some simple ones we picked up last year for the pool area – figured we would reuse them.  Just to the right of the sitting area, you have a new addition as of this weekend… a “Lemon Drop” tree/bush.

Now that Lemon Drop is kind of a mistake.  We wanted a lemon tree, because they are soOOoOo fragrant and we use lemon a lot in cooking and we drink lemon water – so it was a no-brainer to have a lemon tree.  Well, I kind of screwed that up.  We went to pick one up this weekend and we were looking at them all and found one and got out of there.  Got home and trimmed it up nice and pulled the tag off…

WHAT THE…

I had picked up a “Lemon Drop” tree.  Basically it is a hybrid (not the car kind) of a lemon & kumquat… so it isn’t really what we wanted.  I guess in all the picky-ness that ensued while getting our lemon tree… I wondered into the “Lemon Drop” section and grabbed the wrong one.  So here we are… with the wrong damn tree.  Idiot.

We are going to make the best of it though, they are still very fragrant and it has fruit on it – I am just wondering if we are going to get anything out of it after reading a little about it.  I just hope this type has been “engineered” for our area or something… or else it won’t produce because it is too hot.  Dunno – anyone have one of these?!?!

So that is it I suppose.  For now at least.  We have bigger plans, but for the moment at least we have a spot to kick back and relax in and everything is semi close enough to be able to water everything at once.  Very important for us – and anyone for that matter.  If it is a pain in the ass to water, you probably won’t.  Then your garden will suck.  And then the internets will make fun of you.  Then one day you will be on Twitter and someone will be making fun of a garden and you will click the link they shared (because you want to make fun of them too – because your sick like that).  After clicking the link – you realize it is you people are making fun of.

It’s a slippery slope. 

How does your garden grow?

P.S. – If you aren’t friends with us on Flickr (photo sharing/storage site), then why not?  You don’t like us?  That sux.  Quit reading us if we are so uncool.  I mean… your basically stalking us.  Here is our photostream on Flickr if you want to stalk us even more.

P.S.S. – If your on Twitter, follow us.  We will follow you.  Then you can look through our friends and follow them and we will do the same.  Then none of us will get any work done because we are too busy tweeting about the work we should be doing… and then its 11PM and nothing has got done.  On second thought… maybe you should just check out our Twitter feed, the following us is up to you.