Vegetable Garden 2011

We did it! We did it!  And it wasn't even that hard, really.  My very first vegetable garden.  *sigh*  It makes me so happy.  I can remember my mom FORCING me to work in ours when I was younger and I hated it.  I seriously hated it.  But now, I haven't been this excited about a few plants, seeds and dirt since I don't know when!

My mom, Mia and I visited the Farmer's Market in downtown Dallas on Saturday and picked up some plants (as well as some fabulous Mexican food, gelato, butter cake and other things) to put in the garden.  Well, the plants went in the garden, the rest just went in our tummies.  You get the point.  Anyway, the biggest win of the day is getting Mia to do this.  Fabulous!

Yesterday, I got up early and bought lots of dirt for the garden at Home Depot.  Here's what I got.  While I'd like to say I got it because it was organic and fancy and everything but mostly I got it because it was on sale and NOT $15 a bag.  I once heard that you don't have to spend lots of money on the dirt as long as you add plant food.  So, that's what I did.

So, we got my little 4x6 garden box ready to go...

Just a little garden in the city.  Makes me so happy.  Okay, so next step...add the dirt.

 Then let Mia play in it for awhile.

After that, then we added the plant food and spread it around. The kind we used was a quarter cup of food per 5 square inches.

Then we arranged our plants in the position we wanted them.  This was the part that made me the most excited because I could visualize what it would look like.

Here is what we planted:

3 strawberry plants, 2 tomato plants, 1 basil plant, 1 chive plant, 1 cilantro plant, 1 green pepper plant, 1 row of carrot seeds, 1 row of green bean seeds, 1 row of sugar snap pea seeds, 1 row of lavender seeds and marigolds all around.  The marigolds are a natural way to keep the bunnies from digging in your garden.  My mama taught me that one.  You could also use blood meal.  But the thought of that made me want to throw up so I chose pretty flowers in place of blood.  Wasn't a hard choice to make.

Next step, plant the plants and bury the seeds.

Next, step back and admire your square foot garden. 

Oh, and water it of course.  That is important too.

I HAVE A GARDEN!  Cross your fingers and toes that the blazing hot Texas sun doesn't eat it up this summer and I don't forget to water it.