It's that time of the year again! Ready to grow some shit in my pretty little garden! The whole family has been busy pulling weeds and laying bricks and raking dirt to get the garden ready.
We've had basically no winter here in the RVA, so there is really no chance of another frost happening. The last few years we've done a little garden, and every year we wish we'd've started sooner. My kids LOVE to eat everything we grow, some of it straight of the vine, but a lot of the foods we really love to eat grow better in the cooler, early spring temperatures. This year we've added broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and a few varieties of lettuce, and they are already in the ground. I'm a little nervous since I've never grown these successfully but here's hoping they turn out, because this family can eat the hell out of some roasted brussel sprouts. Here they are in all their glory!
I also decided to get the herbs out of the main garden to give us more room for other things, like the carrots I used in everything last year (full disclosure: a carrot from my garden last fall was the first carrot I voluntarily ate and it was delicious and now I can't get enough). In order to move the herbs I added planters to the outside of the garden. The planter on the left will have the herbs, and the planter on the right will have strawberries. We had 1 potted strawberry plant do really well last year, and not a single strawberry made it in the house because they were plucked off and eaten immediately.
And of course, lots and lots of peppers (because we put them in everything), we've got habaneros and cayennes in the ground now, plus we have jalapeños, ghost peppers, and Carolina reapers that we've started inside. If there is room left we'll add poblanos and bell peppers as well.
Since I've added so many new plants, and since I'm generally scatter brained and forgetful, I also decided I needed to make some kind of markers so I know what I planted where. I found some really great ideas on Pinterest that included clay and salt dough, and then I remembered that there's no way in hell I'd ever actually get around to making those so I went with an easier option: wine corks. Because let's face it I've got plenty of those. Here is what I ended up with:
I'm pretty excited for things to start coming in so we can cook with them!
We've had basically no winter here in the RVA, so there is really no chance of another frost happening. The last few years we've done a little garden, and every year we wish we'd've started sooner. My kids LOVE to eat everything we grow, some of it straight of the vine, but a lot of the foods we really love to eat grow better in the cooler, early spring temperatures. This year we've added broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and a few varieties of lettuce, and they are already in the ground. I'm a little nervous since I've never grown these successfully but here's hoping they turn out, because this family can eat the hell out of some roasted brussel sprouts. Here they are in all their glory!
I also decided to get the herbs out of the main garden to give us more room for other things, like the carrots I used in everything last year (full disclosure: a carrot from my garden last fall was the first carrot I voluntarily ate and it was delicious and now I can't get enough). In order to move the herbs I added planters to the outside of the garden. The planter on the left will have the herbs, and the planter on the right will have strawberries. We had 1 potted strawberry plant do really well last year, and not a single strawberry made it in the house because they were plucked off and eaten immediately.
And of course, lots and lots of peppers (because we put them in everything), we've got habaneros and cayennes in the ground now, plus we have jalapeños, ghost peppers, and Carolina reapers that we've started inside. If there is room left we'll add poblanos and bell peppers as well.
Since I've added so many new plants, and since I'm generally scatter brained and forgetful, I also decided I needed to make some kind of markers so I know what I planted where. I found some really great ideas on Pinterest that included clay and salt dough, and then I remembered that there's no way in hell I'd ever actually get around to making those so I went with an easier option: wine corks. Because let's face it I've got plenty of those. Here is what I ended up with:
I'm pretty excited for things to start coming in so we can cook with them!
