The Kitchen Garden: An Update

Well it’s been a long time coming, but the kitchen garden is finally underway! It was a long journey to get here, so let me fill you in on what’s been happening!

The Retaining Wall Saga

You might remember that our backyard is on a slope, and so in order to get the garden beds to lie flat I needed to tier the garden area. This was a task I (mostly) took on by myself, moving heaps of dirt from the garden bed to level the space. Once the bed was dug out, I wanted to build a retaining wall to maintain the integrity of the tier, and this was where it got complicated. My plan was to build a retaining wall with bricks. I was going to dig a trench along the side of the retaining wall and then build up the wall with bricks standing on their ends, side by side. Until I realized how many bricks it would take to build a wall for a 20′ x 20′ garden. The answer: a lot.

Next I decided we would use railroad ties. I knew exactly what I needed to do, but getting the materials to our home was a different story. In the end, I called in a friend to help us get the wall built — a project that took us into late spring.

String bean seeds directly sown in the bed

The Water Saga

Once we had the wall built and the raised beds in place, it was time to get some water to our new little garden space. We had one raised bed in this area last year, so we were planning to just add on from the water we used then. Turns out, not so simple. Our original setup was fine for one bed, but not for five. So we needed help — again! This past week we finally got the water situation resolved and were able to fill the beds with soil and plant our seeds and seedlings.

The Seedling Saga

Not much to say about this! We tried, but most of the seedlings were planted waaaaaayyyyyyy too early and didn’t make it. Two tomato plants survived and they happen to be the ones I grew from seeds in an heirloom tomato that I brought home from the supermarket. We’ll see what happens.

Otherwise, we purchased a few variety of tomato plants including cherry tomatoes; two green pepper plants and two Italian long hot pepper plants; herbs like basil, dill, tarragon, rosemary and marjoram; and some sugar snap peas. (Images below). I also planted seeds for green beans, dill, basil, carrots and lettuces. I have no idea what to expect, but I’m excited to find out!

Lettuce seeds directly sown

How is your garden going so far this year? Tell me in the comments below!