The Best Garden Year Ever

Garden area with new beds. It's looking a little messy right now because I have lots of pots of seedlings going but once I transplant them I can clean things up a bit. 

Or so I hope! I am always highly optimistic at the beginning of the gardening year though so we'll see ;-) Last year I had to abandon my raised beds at the top of our lawn because it was just too shady to get anything to grow properly there. There isn't a ton of sunny space in our yard but we are trying to do the best with what we have and Eric put in 3 new raised beds up by our mailbox which is generally the area that gets the most sun for us. He had to take out two more of our holly bushes which is sad but they were ailing anyway and hopefully the results will be worth it.

Radishes, kale and garlic

 Eric used cedar to make the beds this time to try to keep the bugs out of the wood and they turned out really pretty. Unfortunately I got a little mixed up when i was starting my seeds inside and now I totally don't know what some of the things I planted are, oops... Hopefully it will become clear as they get bigger. To further complicate my gardening Echo loves to "help" me when I work out there. This means that a lot of things get pulled up and scattered around but seeing her enjoy the outside and starting a tradition of gardening with her at a young age is totally worth it! I don't take my gardening too seriously so it's no big deal, plus I usually have way more seeds than I have room to plant things so whenever she pulls something up I can always replace it.

Another view of the new gardens

The pictures I'm posting here are a little old and most of the radishes have been harvested already. In the new beds I have a healthy crop of bush beans, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon and carrots coming up (also a mystery plant that I have no memory of what it is, maybe time will tell?). It's always so exciting to grow things from seed and see the little spots of green start to poke up. It's even more exciting to make a meal with ingredients grown from your own garden!

Salmon cakes and salad, this was ridiculously tasty!

For the above recipe I got to use kale and radishes from my garden in the salad garlic chives in the sauce (which also used Eric's home made yogurt as a base). Although I don't yet provide a substantial portion of what we eat from my garden there is nothing quite as satisfying as growing your own food. Hopefully by moving to a sunnier location and planting things that are easy to grow I can have the best year ever in my garden.