Last year was my first attempt at starting my own vegetable garden. It was hit and miss for a number of reasons and I ended up with a 5-gallon bucket of kale, maybe two cucumbers, and a couple zucchini. The cherry tomato start we bought gave us a few small harvests but the heirloom struggled. A few tiny corns, a couple beans, and a whole lot of nothing when it came to carrots, turnips, beets, radishes and brussel sprouts. The chickens got into the raised bed a couple times since it wasn’t closed off properly. Then the rain started early and rotted the peppers, butternut squash, and strawberries. It was really discouraging to experience hit after hit. This year I’m planning to try a few new things and hopefully get a little bit more from my harvests.
My first fail was starting my seeds (on time) but not having anywhere to transplant them into. We had plans for raised beds and just took a long time getting around to building them. Ultimately, this plus going out of state for a week, killed all of the starts and I had to begin again in late April/May. Which was fail number two. Way too late in the season for certain plants to stay healthy with how quickly it warmed up around here.
This year, I have started my seeds in peat pellets versus the plastic trays. I really did not like having to crush and scrunch a 72-pocket tray to get my little starts out. Such a mess. For the few seeds I have started in the pellets so far, it’s pretty simple to soak the peat and then place the seed. I have them in a disposable aluminum baking tray and water them when they start to look dry.
We have started cleaning up what will be an entirely enclosed garden space, but like last year, have a lot of work to do. The difference this year is that while I will still have raised beds, the majority of the space will just be the ground. With the portion of the raised beds we did finish, I didn’t learn where my soil height should be until after planting and had a lot of vegetables packed into a relatively small space. I did loads of research on companion planting and have drawn up a little plan in hopes that being a little more organized will add to my success.
