Do You Grow Vegetables?
I mentioned before that i recently joined Instagram and now I get to see tons of fabulous garden photographs daily. I especially enjoy the photos of people homegrown produce and vegetable gardens, but I don't actually do that anymore.
I had a great veggie garden at our first house up in New York. It was comprised of wooden raised beds that we pretty easy to keep weeded. This garden was aesthetically pleasing and I really enjoyed working in it.
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| Our vegetable garden at our first house |
When we moved to Texas we actually had two vegetable gardens at our first house. The original garden was one the previous owner has used. It didn't have raised beds and was a weedy mess that was hard to keep watered. The second garden we built was made up of cinder block raised beds and had soaker hoses installed in each bed. It was easier to water, but was still a weedy mess due to the soil we used. It came with tons of free weed seeds and lots of nut sedge. I didn't enjoy either of these gardens as much as the first.
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| Don't worry we eventually mulched around the beds up to the split rail fence. |
At our current house, we did a little vegetable gardening our second summer. We used galvanized troughs as planters. We has a reasonable amount of success. The proximity to the house made it easy to keep up with (though an infant sort of negated that), but since it is right up on the patio, we had to look at the unattractive stages a lot. The next year we started out with a garden, but about halfway through the summer it was a mess due to pest problems and these planters have been re-purposed.
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| Don't let it's good looks deceive you...a few weeks after this picture was taken the tomatoes were over taken with spider mites and things looked bleak at best. |
So now I don't vegetable garden (except for the rough pumpkin or tomato that comes up from a misplaced seed. The Instagram gardeners have me sort of wanting to try again and see how it goes this time. It's a lot harder to grow vegetables in Texas than New York and I never really did get the timing down, but maybe if I tired again it would be different. I also don't have a space that has full sun anymore since it's all been used with other projects, but I probably could squeeze something in near the turtles and tortoises where it's almost full sun.
I'll definitely have to give it more thought and there are a few more pressing projects that I want to get taken care of first, but maybe, just maybe, I'll give it another go and try another vegetable garden.
Do it! Start small. Like just tomatoes one year and see how they go. Honestly, I have trouble finding non-edible gardeners for my podcast a lot of times. So many are edible only and I love the flower garden part maybe even more.
ReplyDeleteI've stopped growing many vegetables as I have little space in the sun anymore. (someone keeps planting trees and shrubs.) I've been considering using a raised bed space at a nearby community garden to grow some veggies as it's fun to watch them develop.
ReplyDeleteAs your first vegetable garden brought you joy, I think you should definitely give it another go. I inherited 3 raised planters with our current house and garden but, like your earlier experience, they were full of terrible soil. After about 5 years I gave up my vegetable garden for a floral cutting garden but I admit I miss the tomatoes and the sugar snap peas. Maybe someday I'll have a mix of vegetables and flowers in that area. I still have citrus trees and herbs there.
ReplyDeleteI am turning my raised bed for vegetables into a compost pile. Ha... I say do what you like. Don't feel guilty if you don't grow your own veggies. I bet there is a farmers market close enough to fill your pantry and tummy with good grown veggies. I do have a tomato plant that pops up here and there. I leave them and enjoy what they offer. I actually had an acorn squash vine pop up in the compost heap. I let it go and have several squashes. We have eaten a couple already. Obviously my compost heap isn't the most spectacular because it doesn't get hot enough to kill seeds but hey, I get some compost eventually and that is a big plus to me.
ReplyDeleteVegetable gardening is one of the reasons I moved into the house I moved into! It's the thing that makes me happy! I have clay soil, so it's all in raised beds. Purchased cedar, cheaply home-made Douglas fir, some with pre-made corners, concrete block, even a bottomless plastic kiddy pool!
ReplyDeleteIt's a lot of work (and expense to start out with beds and proper soil). If all you have is "almost full sun," I'd say you were pretty limited in vegetable varieties. If you try for tomatoes or peppers, you'll end up disappointed!
Your other gardens are just so lovely, maybe you aren't a vegetable garden person in Texas!