Our {First Ever} Vegetable Garden

For awhile now I have wanted to plant a vegetable garden. We had one when I was a kid and I loved helping my dad with it and eating fresh veggies right out of the garden. So of course I wanted to do the same for my kids. I also think it’s important to teach them that fresh food doesn’t come from a grocery store. Someone has to work hard to grow it.

This weekend, while the weather was warm (crazy Texas weather, it’s been in the 50’s and 60’s this week), we successfully planted our first garden. We have 2 varieties of tomatoes planted at the back, some green beans and bell peppers (also at the back), basil, cilantro, banana peppers and strawberries in the front. Obviously I have more room to plant but this was just to get us started (and all that our Lowe’s had). So I hope to plant some more in the coming weeks.

Originally I thought I was going to plant in another part of the yard, but discovered it didn’t get enough sun. So I moved to plan B and was lucky enough to see this 2-tiered raised planter bed from Lowe’s for only $90. We bought about 5 bags of soil and 5 bags of compost, some plants and we got to work. From start to finish, it only took us about 5 hours.

We started out by marking about a 5’ x 5’ area and dug up all of the sod (ok, weeds).

Once the sod/weeds had been removed, I added one bag of good soil to the ground and tilled the soil (just a little, ‘cuz I was anxious to get to the fun part!). Here’s what it looked like just before we put the planter box down.

The boys put together the planter box (which took about 15 minutes and was super easy!).

While the girls watched and took self-portraits :)

And here’s the box ready to be filled with our soil and compost.

This was everyone’s favorite part (kids + dirt = happy).

Then we planted our veggies and gave them a nice drink of water (note: this image has been strategically cropped because my son was naked at this point, except for his sneakers, of course!)

Then we finished out the day by playing in the water hose (ok, the hole in the water hose that was inadvertently turned into a sprinkler). All in all, a great day!

I do still plan to do some research about keeping the squirrels and birds out of the garden because I certainly don’t want them to eat our veggies! But for now, the use of my son’s realistic looking snake seems to have kept them at bay.

So how many of you have gardens? Are you seasoned gardeners or newbies like us? Any tips to share (especially about keeping the critters out)? Are any of you Texas gardeners?