Back in May, we embarked on our gardening adventure. After filling our house with plants, David finally joined me on my new obsession and decided that we could build our first garden together. We started off with very different ideas, however. I was picturing we would start slowly, maybe one raised bed and a few plants. But David had bigger plans for our garden.
This was a fun project for us to do together, and one that would last beyond just one weekend. We tended to our garden all summer and enjoyed all the treats it provided for our meals. So along with a video of our summer garden, I wanted to share a few lessons we learned in the process.
Lessons from Our Summer Garden
Foundations are important
My original vision of one tiny raised bed quickly transformed into something larger, and a larger garden meant we had to think a lot harder about how to start the whole process. We knew the foundation was important, because that would affect everything else that came after it. In my haste, I just wanted to set the beds on the grass a call it a day. But David had more forethought to till the ground, lay weed barrier, mulch, and then the beds. Had we gone my route, our plants would have been chocked out by grass and weeds quickly. But more time spent on creating a solid foundation meant more prosperous plants. More than once David would ask me, “Is this even?” or “Is this straight?” And even though our foundation may not be perfect, our plants still grew despite our first-time-gardening flaws.
Be wiling to learn and “replant”
We’ll be the first to admit that we didn’t know a whole lot about gardening before we got started. My grandparents were big time gardeners, and it makes me sad to think that I missed out on a lot of good conversations with them about how to garden. We did a lot of googling on the front end of our project, but we still didn’t learn as much as we could have. It took actually growing a garden and experiencing it to learn more. For example, we learned that we shouldn’t have planted the squash and zucchini next to each other because their large leaves competed for sunlight. And we learned that cucumbers are vining plants that will take over your yard if you don’t give them somewhere up to grow. A good gardener will learn from their garden and make it better each season, and we look forward to trying this again next summer.
Things will bounce back after a storm
Our garden was toppled over more than once by quick, but powerful summer storms. The first time, we moved the plants back to their original positions and hoped for the best. The second time, we added more plant cages and supports to attempt to keep everything in an upright position. But even after every storm, no matter how wonky they stood, the plants still produced their fruit.