Our First Garden

We are planting our first garden this year. I have been moving every year since I graduated from high school 10 years ago. I moved from home (in Jefferson, Iowa) to college (at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa) where I moved every year from several dorms and several apartments. After graduation, I moved to Boston, MA for a year, then to Chicago for a year, then San Francisco for 2 years, then back to Iowa. After 10 years of annual moving, we have bought a house and are very excited to stay in one place for more than a year. So, to celebrate, we are planting our first garden.

As a child, we had a garden every year. I helped my mom with the gardening, but I really don't remember very much about it. So, this is definitely a learning experience for us. We have a 26 x 53 foot area reserved in our backyard for the garden. My husband built 3 raised beds that are 12x4 feet, and one 4x4 bed and the rest of the area available for planting is 17 by 53 feet.

We are planting 40 varieties of vegetables plus 8 different herbs. Although, every time I go to the store I end up buying more seeds, so we may end up with more than that. So far, our list of veggies include 4 different varieties of carrots (orange, red, purple, white), 3 different varieties of beets (purple, golden, chioggia), 2 varieties of onions (yellow & red), green beans, broccoli, zucchini, 4 different varieties of summer squash, 5 different varieties of sweet peppers (red, orange, purple, yellow, ivory), 8 varieties of tomatoes (6 heirloom varieties- Nyagous, Moonglow, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Green Zebra, Brandywine, yellow pear + roma & celebrity tomatoes), sugar pie pumpkins, butternut squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, carnival squash, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, peas, and rhubarb. For my herbs we are planning for cilantro, basil, chives, parsley, sage, oregano, thyme & rosemary.

We started some of the seeds inside (tomatoes, peppers, onions, broccoli, sage, thyme, & oregeno) and we are planning to plant the rest outside soon.