A Garden For Me

Warning: Photo-heavy post. Don’t judge. I’m excited. You be too.

Over the 4th of July weekend, my beau and I spent most of our time outside.  We weren’t relaxing in the sun, sipping frosty beverages and working on our tans, instead we were building arguably the most stable fence a garden has ever had. 

When I initially started thinking about parsing off some of our backyard into a garden space, I was thinking we’d go find some pallets, secure them to each other, leave one able to swing open and tada! I’d have a quick and easy fence to keep the dogs away from my plants and compost heap.

Mentioning such a plan to an engineer with a perfectionist streak? My “easy” afternoon plan turned into 4 days, 3 trips to Lowe’s, countless leveling and securing and stabilizing attempts and, a really pretty fence with a pallet gate.

It does what it was set out to do – it keeps the dogs out (much to their dismay).

And on the inside?

I fashioned a very simple compost heap and planted this year’s seeds in containers.  If we’re still in this house next year I’ll put in raised beds and really go to town on the space.

And, even though I got a super late start on the growing season, I already have a number of my seeds sprouting!

Carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, bush beans and tomatoes (from starters, not seeds) are hopefully going to grace my dinner plate later this year 🙂

This is my first real time gardening and so far I’m really enjoying it.  I go out to “visit” my plants at least 2 or 3 times a day to make sure they’re getting enough water (as you can see in the pictures, this is New Mexico, the dessert, even container plants aren’t safe from drought) and to see if anything new has grown!

Have you ever gardened before?  Any words of wisdom for the newbie?