Hi, friends!
The other day I was looking for some old family photos…and oh my goodness…what a trip down memory lane it was with so many old garden pics!
I thought it would be humorous and fun to show you the first year of the garden here…so let’s go back to 2011.
{Our Siamese cat, Babe, was a prolific hunter…and I swear he kept the voles and gophers at bay}
Think I need some cats again.
We had just moved from Arizona…and lo and behold I found this super cute greenhouse at Costco for $800…and wanted it so badly…so it came home with us.
We plopped it way out yonder without giving the location another thought and put it up easily enough on a wood platform.
I made it all cute and everything…started growing plants in it…then realized it was getting way too hot inside the darn thing in the summer even here in Idaho.
So…with some old lumber left from the previous owner, Mr. Denim started making raised garden beds.
And silly me…I started growing right in those beds…until I found out about the damage that deer can do. Hahahaha.
Humorous, because coming from Arizona we had no idea that deer are not a gardener’s friend…yep, we were totally ignorant.
{That’s what living in the suburbs does to ya}
So…another brilliant idea of mine…let’s just put up four posts on each bed and put chicken wire or netting around it.
That worked for about a week until I realized how hard it is to weed and take care of growing veggies with a darn fence around it.
Can you guess what happened next? Hint…W.O.R.K. ย All summer.
We copied a neighbor’s deck railing. Thank goodness Mr. Denim loves a challenge.
If we had to do it today, it would be much cheaper and easier to just go buy cow panels instead of using concrete metal mesh ย which we had to special order and pick up an hour away. But you know me….I love the rusted look.
And yes…it’s constant maintenance even to this day having grass in a garden…but my eyes appreciate it.
I will say in my defense that this garden is visible to neighbors so I wanted it to look decent and Sunset magazine ย “worthy”…not a bunch of old tires with veggies planted in them. If my garden was hidden, it might be another matter, so do what you need to do.
You might notice that the grass was perfect back then…before we had garden dogs. Just sayin’.
And thus began my 9 years of gardening. Win some, lose some…but it’s all good. Am I right?
And soon after the fence was completed…look who showed up trying to get in?
That first year of creating this garden whetted my appetite big time. And every year we’ve expanded it – built a garden shed, chicken coop and a larger and improved greenhouse. Maybe I’ll go through the garden year by year if you’d like.
It’s a never ending process, really. But I think we’re done expanding. I don’t need more plant babies to take care of every spring. I am content with what I have now.
The moral of the story…take what you have…and fine tune it into something that makes you smile.
It will be your happy place for years to come.
Wondering, after 9 years in, would you initially still go with just wood for raised beds, or stock tanks entirely overall? After 12 years into my “gardening”, I see the value of changes over time, improvement upon what one has done in the past, as the years teach you how to evolve practices. I started with metal gutters on vertical posts for my strawberry plants, but now put 4×4 square ‘starter’ pots onto the metal gutters for better summer root development/storage prep for winter.
Hi Dena!
Yes to both questions. I like raised garden beds for many reasons. My wood beds are 20″ high and the troughs are 24″. The only caveat is douglas fir does not last well past 8-10 years. So…we’re getting to where we’ll need to replace them…and cedar would be the best replacement but oh so expensive. The troughs I use strictly for herbs…they’re perfect for smaller plants. Funny you should mention metal gutters…I did that very same experiment a few years back to grow romaine…huge failure. So this year I tried radishes. Again failure. Think tho that it’s because they’re facing south and require constant watering. Good idea with your 4×4 square pots! I might try that:)
Your questions gave me the idea of writing a post soon about what I’d do differently in the garden…what worked and what didn’t. Boy, I’ll have some long lists of pros and cons. Ha!
Thanks for commenting,
~ Holly