How Our Garden Grew

Seth and I like to cook and we try to use as much fresh food as possible. It can get really expensive. We already have a few fruits trees in our yard, so we figured it would be a great idea to try growing our own vegetables and herbs as well!

Our two huskies love to dig in the mulch, so a regular garden wouldn't work for us. I had seen plans for raised gardens all over Pinterest and Seth agreed that it looked like a simple, fun project for us to work on together. We measured the area we planned to use for the garden and headed off to Home Depot.

We wanted to have two 4 x 4 or 4 x 5 beds and we spent a good amount of time browsing the lumber aisles to see what types of wood and cut would work for us. Admittedly, we took the easy way out. We found pre-cut 1 x 12 x 4 pieces of pine board for less than $7 a piece. Not too bad. We already had all of the tools - hammer, nails, screws - that we needed to build the boxes, so we moved on to the garden center. In order to keep our dogs out of the beds, we also bought some garden fencing (something like this). Finally we grabbed some river pebbles to use as ground cover around the beds and picked out a selection of herbs and vegetables, both potted and seeds.

Seth put the beds together (with a little help from me), first using nails but then switching to screws. The ground isn't really level so the beds tilt and it was putting some pressure on the front boards. The screws do a better job of holding it all together. Brackets would work well too!

You can see that we underestimated the amount of top soil we would want at first, so we had to head back to Home Depot for more.

All finished! On the left we planted two types of tomatoes, jalapeños, green peppers, and two rows from carrots from seeds. On the right we have basil, oregano, chives, cilantro, lemon thyme, spearmint, and chamomile from seeds.

Binky and Bear love their new garden. The potted plant in the middle is a lime tree that has been planted to the left of the garden. I'm so excited for that - I can make limonada con soda and fresh margaritas whenever I want!

It's been almost two weeks since we planed everything and you can see the carrots starting to come in along the front of the left bed! Bear approves of the progress.

All in all, I think the gardens probably cost a bit more than we expected but like I said we took the easy way out. We're really happy with how they look. We might choose to stain and seal the wood or use cedar next time, but we'll see how these hold up through the hot, rainy summer. Yard work is a whole lot more fun now that we have something to look forward to. We already enjoyed our first garden meal - homemade pasta sauce made with fresh basil and oregano. I can't wait for the jalapeños and the limes!