Much enjoyment comes from growing your own vegetable garden. It’s an activity where everyone in the family can contribute. My husband and I are sharing the space with two great friends and we are having so much fun. Just 5 weeks in from tilling and planting and we are already eating from our garden. I am so excited!!

The space is approximately 20′ x 25′. The first step made with our garden was to deal with the soil. As the saying goes: “Feed the Soil and the Plants Will Take Care of Themselves.” It is probably a great idea to test the soil in a new area to determine how much nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium you have in your soil and what the pH is. We were familiar with some of the other gardeners and talked with them to get an idea of the soil quality. So no soil testing for us, we jumped right in!

We ended up renting a rototill to turn the soil over. Once this was accomplished we added worm poo (castings). I have been worm composting for about a year now. The great advantage of worm composting is that this can be done indoors and outdoors allowing year round composting. We had prime castings ready to be mixed into the soil after the tiling process. Nothing better than digging through worm poo!

After the soil was amended we had a split of seeds and seedlings. Seedlings are much easier to start with but we all wanted to see if we could start seeds in the soil and get something to grow. The depth you plant your seeds depends on their size. They only need enough soil to cover them and supply moisture for germination. Seeds buried too deep may not be able to struggle through the soil to the surface. As a rule of thumb, seeds should be covered up to twice their diameter at their largest point. After you’ve set the seeds at the correct depth, firm the soil by tamping it with your hands or the end of your garden rake. This will improve contact between the seeds and the moist soil. For the seedlings we just dug a hole and placed the plant in the hole and filled in around it and firmly pressed down with fingers to pack it in.

We get our seeds from Abundant Life Seed Company. Their goal is to offer true-to-type open pollinated varieties grown using only certified organic or biodynamic farming methods. Abundant Life has pledged that they will not knowingly buy or sell genetically-engineered seeds or plants. Growing GMO free products were a must for us.

After the planting, we stood around and looked at the garden and all hoped for the best. Of course a little watering needed to take place. Vegetable plants need 1 – 2 inches of water each week especially from mid June to mid August. Too little water will not let the plant roots grow deep and strong. They need to be able to do this to gather nutrients for good growth. Too much water will saturate the soil so it’s all about observation. Get to know your soil conditions. I think its best to water before 10am or after 5pm. We are here in sunny California and have plenty sunshine so if your watering more towards the evening time the plants have plenty of time to dry off before dark. This is important because if plants are too moist they can get fungus or disease.

We planted watermelon, squash, zucchini, beets, peppers, hot peppers lettuce, swiss chard, arugala, and 5 varieties of heirloom tomatoes. Everything in the garden is growing and looking great. We were surprised that the arugala grew so fast and we are eating it now. It is soooo yummy. I’ve had it in salads and on sandwiches. A very rewarding feeling. We are so ready for everything else to start producing. We actually lucked out with the weather being a bit cooler because we ended up planting a large amount of different lettuce varieties and we planted a little too late. But hey it worked out. It’s all a big experiment!!

I encourage you to start a little garden in your back yard. It relieves stress and it’s pleasant knowing that you grew your very own food. When we get more veggies from the garden I will update you all and share some recipes. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, I have a friend who grows over 67 varieties of heirloom tomatoes. Her name is Laura Taylor and she teaches tomato growing classes and cooking classes. She will be selling her lovely tomatoes this summer. Such a great person and an even more amazing gardener. Check her blog out for more information. TomatoMania is another amazing resource for everything tomoatoes.

Here’s to a happy garden!!