Happy July 4th and Our DIY Garden Tour

You know what's therapeutic -gardening? It's been a couple weeks since my last blog post, but I needed a mental break. I've posted on IG, but even there my posts have been infrequent.  Being mindful about slowing down, unplugging and finding joy in gardening and Summer time pleasures with the kiddos have been priority. So today, I'm going to show you LOTS of pictures of the garden and talk about what we did. This is the area in the yard where the chickens used to live. Unfortunately, they were all killed my either a fox or coyote last year.  With the soil ideally fertilized by the chickens, we thought this would be a great spot for the veggie garden. Those trees pictures exist solely from propagation-we didn't plant them and they provide amazing shade.

Before Pics  and A Bit About The Process

At the beginning of April:

We had some left over wood in the shed and decided to use them to make raised beds. The hubby built the beds, then we transported them down to the area where the garden would be. 

We used soil from the earth in this spot since it was so fertile and mixed it with the store bought soil. We also used newspaper that I had in my hoarding stash in the shed from when I taught 5th grade years ago to line the raised beds. They are great as a weed barrier plus they naturally disintegrate.

And then it was time to plant all the veggies. These pics were taken around April 10th. We planted some kale, squash, lettuce, tomatoes, scotch bonnet peppers(habanero), bell peppers, mad hatter peppers, basil, oregano, corn, sage, thyme, peas, string beans, potatoes, cucumbers, parsley, and we had mint, rosemary, and chives that were from prior plantings

This was taken about a month later.  Since we enjoy coming down here to not only pick produce, but to also relax, I decided to spruce the are up a bit more by laying down some pea gravel. It was a lot of work but I love the way it turned out. The kiddos hanging out here, especially Cheyenne. She is a bush girl just like her Mama. Here are some pics taken at about the 2 month mark since we planted. 

2 months later: 

hubby built a bench addition onto the third raised bed(also pictured above) and it comes in so handy

 We hope you enjoy the long weekend! We'll be staying cool while eating our veggies :-) xx



images- first image and before  pics by me- other pics-Lea Hartman Photography