My husband, Tanner, and I planted our first garden last weekend. I took some pictures the following day just to start keeping a record of how it grows, and decided where better to document it than on the blog. It’s becoming a sort of journal for me, anyway.

Tanner and his granddad built the raised bed out of cross ties, then Tanner’s dad brought some good soil over from his farm to fill it. At the suggestion of the worker at the garden center, we added lime to the raised bed, and fertilizer around each plant. The blueberries have their own fertilizer called Blueberry Special, which the nice elderly founder of the garden center got up out of his comfy-looking rocking chair to help Tanner find. :)

In all, we planted four blueberry bushes of two breeds, four squash plants, four okra, four cucumber, two strawberry, four cantaloupe, four tomatoes and four tommy toe-cherry tomatoes, and in a slightly hilarious blunder, twelve pepper plants. We wanted a variety of colors, but when Tanner was picking them out with the help of the garden center worker, he forgot to consider how the plants come in fourpacks there. Thus we ended up with four red, four green, and four yellow pepper plants. It’s a good thing we use them in a lot of our favorite meals. Haha.

These pictures were taken last Sunday, the day after the garden was planted. We’ve already had two ripe strawberries and more already growing, and the blueberry bushes look great. Some of the squash, tomato, and cucumber plants haven’t been looking so well, but we think it may be that we just need to water things at a different time of day. The garden is in our backyard, which gets a ton of direct sunlight. Tanner’s been watering the plants when he gets home from work around 4:45, but we’ve decided I’ll try watering them around lunchtime, just before the hottest part of the day, and see if that helps.

I have helped pick ripe fruits and veggies from family’s garden before when they need it, but I’ve never kept a garden of my own. And although my husband grew up on a farm, he’s never had his own garden either, so all of this is a first for us. We’re using what we know and helpful advice from family members who are seasoned gardeners to care for the garden. Hopefully things work out well. Either soon you’ll see pictures of pretty blooms and healthy fruit, or you’ll get to watch as this project crashes and burns. We’ll see. :)