Starting our Vegetable garden

In the first week of May, the ground finally thawed out enough that we could start digging our beds for our new vegetable garden.

This is my first vegetable garden EVER.  I am pretty good at flowers and plants but never attempted vegetables before.

The area just behind the house gets the most sun during the day, so we decided that was the best spot.

We made 3 big beds, each about 4 ft X 20 ft.

The hardest part was getting the layer of grass off the top. Tim and 2 of our sons, Patrick and Chris, helped us get the beds started.

 

Once we had the grass taken off the top, we used shovels to turn the dirt over and loosen it all up.

We added sand to help with drainage of the soil.

  

Tim tilled the sand in with the soil to get it mixed in really good.

 

We also added fertilizer (we used 10-10-10 brand fertilizer)  

We happened to have just enough bricks to go around all 3 beds

 

To protect the garden from squirrels and bunny rabbits, Tim put a fence around the entire garden. He left plenty of room inside the fence line so we could dig more beds in there. 

 

I painted a few bricks to use as garden markers so I could remember what we planted in each bed.
We started almost everything from seed, and we planted our seeds directly into the garden beds around May 15th.

After a few days, everything began to grow. 

This pic was taken in early June

 

  

 

Tim's sister gave us some Raspberry starters from her garden. We planted them in a new bed that we dug out along one side of the fence.
The first year, these raspberries won't bear much fruit (if any at all). As they grow and spread their roots, we should have plenty of raspberries from these plants next year.

Randi also gave us some Strawberry starters. Same as the raspberries, these strawberries won't bear much fruit the first year. Next year we should have a lot more berries from these plants.

This pic was taken a few weeks ago, just as everything was beginning to grow.

As of today, some of those tomato plants are about 4 feet tall!
The cucumber plants have grown so much lately they seem to be trying to take over the whole garden. I had to cut some of them back last night to keep them from overtaking the tomatoes.

More pics and garden updates coming soon!!