VEGETABLE GARDEN UPDATE: MAY 2021
The vegetable garden has officially been up and running for one month and there is growth! I saw my broccoli and potatoes take off this past week and I felt an overwhelming feeling of: I. Am. A. GARDENERRRR!
Five broccoli in the back and potatoes in the front
I didn’t end up sharing my potato planting process yet, so here it is: I was at Lowe’s and just so happened to find myself in the gardening section (!) and they had little boxes of seed potatoes, so that’s what I got! I chopped them up to get a little more bang for my buck, leaving at least one eye on each piece, and then let them sit out for a few days to callous over a bit. Then they got plopped in the ground the first week of April. I followed Garden Answer’s instructions in this video. It took them just a handful of weeks to pop out of the ground and it was so exciting! They’re growing pretty fast now, especially with the rainy weather we’ve been having.
The sweet peas along the fence are popping up, the shelling peas growing up the trellis are doing well, and the mini romaine lettuce and carrots are starting to show growth too!
My only slight failure so far was my onions. Maybe only 1/3 to 1/2 of the ones I started back in January and planted out in April seemed to take, but I started more from seed in the greenhouse this spring so I’ll pop those in here soon to fill it out.
We also got the garden path installed! We went for more of a ~rustic look than originally planned, because the square slate stones I love (and have in the rest of our garden) aren’t sold anymore. So we snagged some of these irregular flagstones from Lowe’s for about $6 a pop and filled in with river rock from Lowe’s as well.
We debated between having river rock or mulch between the flagstones but eventually decided on the river rock since this area is on a slope. When we get those super heavy rains in late Spring/early Summer this is the area where the backyard water flows to the front yard, so we didn’t want a mulch-y mess. Also, we went with river rock as opposed to smaller pea gravel because it is supposed to not move around as much due to its more jagged edges (according to the internet). My husband did use paver base under some of the flagstone to make them level and less wobbly and tamped them down with a rubber mallet. So far nothing has moved an inch and it’s easy to move the garden cart or lawnmower over the path.
Everything is held in by EasyFlex no-dig edging, which I plan to conceal with some ground cover to, ya know, edge the edging. The one note I did find online about this stuff is that it can move, so reviewers recommended grabbing extra landscape stakes (some come in the box but you can buy more separately), which I did do. Might as well secure it into place while the entire thing is dug up instead of having to adjust things later on. We also used the edging in a strip under the front gate to keep the river rock from sliding down the hill.
The area is coming along so nicely and we love it! I’m still trying to nail down the final design details for the rest of the fenced-in area. There are some patches of full sun and part shade so I’ll get to play around with some interesting plant combinations. I hope to incorporate some perennials and shrubs while also leaving room for cut flowers. We’re still knee-deep in our kitchen reno so I’ll probably get back to this project in a few weeks.