June 11th, 2011
We started our first vegetable garden today. Nancy has created beautiful flower gardens for many years but this is our first attempt at growing food. With all the talk and fear of economic collapse and skyrocketing food prices, become more self-sufficient is probably a good thing.
So our local community garden offered small plots for rent. We put our name on the list early in the year but there was a waiting list. They called last week and told us a plot freed up and asked if we wanted it. It is a bit late in the season to start a garden, but then again, summers in St. Louis go on for a while. So we paid our $20 and were given access to the plot!
As we are getting a late start we thought it better to begin with starter plants vs seeds. We went shopping and bought $30 of vegetables starter plants, and did pick up some seeds and started those at home for crops later in the season. Saturday morning we went to the site to take a look. It was a raised bed, 5' X 10', overgrown with grass and a little low on topsoil. In about 30 minutes we had cleaned out the grass, broke up the clumps and leveled the soil. Decided we needed a couple bags of topsoil, went and picked up that, along with a few trellis for the climing plants. Returned to the site, added the soil, and replanted all the starter plants. All told spent 2 hours of work and $96 for the plot, plants, seeds, topsoil, and trellis.
We have lots of plants in a small plot and are concerned that we have may too many, but also thinking some may die off, so we'll just wait and see how they fill in.
Plants we started with:
- Jalapeno peppers
- Yellow peppers
- Red peppers
- Purple peppers
- Roma tomatoes
- Green Zebra tomatoes
- Tomatillo tomatoes
- Acorn squash
- Spaghetti squash
- Crook-Neck squash
- Brussel Sprouts
- Celery
- Canteloupe
- Watermellon
- Cucumber
- Sweet potaotes
- Basil
- Cilantro
Here is a picture of the day 1 results:
