It’s 2024 and we finally have a dedicated garden for vegetables, etc..

It’s with a thankful heart that I can introduce you to this sweet corner of our yard that is dedicated to a garden area.

Late winter we found a local guy advertising these cedar raised beds on FBM. We were going to get two to start but he gave us a really good deal on the smaller one in front so we took it.

To the side of our home opposite our garage we have quite a bit of yard. Long story short, this is where I imagined our outdoor living taking place but at the last minute the builder had to flip our house plan. The reason was that the driveway needed to be on the high side of the lot. (which means I would have completely picked a whole other space to build — but, you know how time lines and contracts go. You have to be flexible or just wait forever and ever and ever for all the things to be exact.)

Our kids were growing up in an apartment at that point and we just had to go with the lesser time consuming options.

We put the fence in to keep our animals safe. The gate is flanked with urns that leads to the garden.

This is basically the whole before of the garden because she is so new.

In February, we planted some seeds indoors to bring out here. February was a bit early for us, based on when we could get to the gardening this year, so we lost a few things. Learning!

The first small box holds all of our early gardening efforts. The survivors are hot peppers, beets, cucumbers, possibly summer squash, tomatoes of some kind, and coleus for color.

We have some pumpkins seeds to try on the ground and we still need to get some established veggies for the other raised beds.

Here is how we filled the cedar beds.

1. Layer of cardboard boxes (no shiny stuff)
2. Leaves, sticks and logs from the yard
3. Organic and Natural Raised Bed Mix by Coast of Maine

Won’t some blooming bushes and berry bushes be pretty here?

So far this is all I have there. We ordered some covers for the large beds to keep deer away. Once we get those I’ll head back to the nursery for more yummy things to plant.

Basically this is the very beginning of what I hope to be a favorite place to spend a day with an abundance of fresh food for our family.

I clipped our boxwood bushes and couldn’t just throw the clippings away so I filled a trash can with water and placed them inside a pot.

Adirondack chair is thrifted but I hope to find another or we could hang a hammock.

This is my first official vegetable garden so while I share what I do, I am not the expert but learning as I go. I hope you’ll stick around to watch it grow with me.