The Why

Growing up, we would spend a ton of time with my Grandma Bosch. We did so many different things, and she always had something for us to do. My favorite was when she would cut coupons out of the newspaper for some activity, and then we would go do it. Summertime with my grandma was always the best.

We would always plant things, too. I remember planting potatoes, and we would have all of our plants out on the porch and wait for them to grow. I don’t actually remember if anything was successful, but the memories we created together are always etched in my mind.

Last year, my grandma passed away unexpectedly, and I miss her dearly. She was seriously the sweetest lady ever. She would help you with anything and drop whatever she was doing to do it. She was the depiction of what a grandma should be. Losing her was devastating. The year prior, my grandpa passed away, so I know they are reunited in heaven.

This is the main reason I put “start a garden” on my 30 Before 30 list. I not only wanted to start growing fresh food for my family, but I also wanted to create memories with my boys like the ones I had with my grandma. Those are some of the most precious memories I have from growing up, and they’re something I’ll cherish forever.

The How

Let me tell you, when I put down “start a garden,” I was kind of thinking about starting with a small planter. But who are we kidding? It’s me. We don’t just start something small—we go all in. So, of course, we got FOUR big garden beds and dropped $400 on

plants. LOL.

Now, I definitely think you could’ve done this way better than I did, but I’m going to share what I did. I did a ton of research, but I also winged it with so many things.

The first thing I had to do was prep the space. We have lived in our house for almost seven years now—which, how has time gone that fast?—and we’ve barely touched the backyard. I don’t share as much as I should about our house renovations because, OMG, have there been a million. We’ve basically redone our entire house at this point, but it’s still nowhere near done. I think that’s why we got so burned out on it. There were endless projects, with nothing ever feeling truly done.

BUT that stops now. This year, we are on a mission to finish all the things AND throw in more projects…because why not, right?

We hadn’t really touched our backyard at all, besides cutting down the giant dead tree in the middle of the yard about four years ago. The grass has gotten better over the years, but it is still not in great shape. There are weeds all over and roots from things that needed to be dug up.

Honestly, before kids, we were running around with four dogs. Yes, you heard that right. We had four dogs at home, and I wasn’t all too concerned with what the yard looked like because we were too busy having fun in it. And with four dogs, nothing can stay that nice.

Now that we have kids and life finally feels a little steadier, we decided this was the year to do something with our backyard. We poured a concrete patio and tore down the screened-in porch that was rotting away, which breathed life into our backyard! It was the perfect jump-start into the garden.

The Doing - Prep

Now, the root situation I mentioned…that was a real pain in my you-know-what. I dug up so many roots, and man, did I have to dig down to get them out. My husband told me I didn’t have to go down as far as I did, but I wasn’t about to do all this work and have those roots come back up once everything was done.

Along with this year already being so busy, I had to squeeze in time here and there to do this, too.

After about a week, I finally finished digging up the roots…just to decide that we were going to move where we were putting the garden.

So began the next process of prepping the new space. But don’t worry—we are still going to use the original space to plant an apple tree!

The new space took quite a while as well because it was right next to the shed, which had years of decaying mulch behind it. That ended up working out great for filling my beds.

During this time, all of the plants I bought were just hanging out in the garage in their pots. I would move them out into the sun every day and water them. My boys really enjoyed this process too, and this is when I started to get super attached to my plants.

Now, I should’ve known I would get attached to them because I get attached to just about everything, so why not a living plant? But I was very much ready to get them planted!

Once the area was prepped, my husband started laying down the edging and garden fabric while I put together the garden beds. They took wayyyy longer than I expected to put together, but they were super simple! There were just lots of nuts and bolts.

At the time, we only had three beds, and we just couldn’t find a layout that looked good, so we decided to get a fourth bed. It completed the look—and good thing, because I definitely needed that fourth one for the extra room!

The Doing - Filling

Wow, were these way bigger than I expected.

A couple of years ago, my husband trimmed our trees, and he had a bunch of wood stacked up—which I had to move about three times—and it was perfect for the bottom of the beds! I started with the wood and ended up needing even more of it. I read that it helps fill the beds so you don’t need as much dirt, and as the wood decomposes over time, it will provide nutrients to the garden.

After the wood, I put in regular fill dirt that I had dug up from around the yard during this project. You should’ve seen the pile we had and how much back and forth it took to fill these beds. I definitely got my workout in doing this!

The last layer was good gardening soil, but my 12 bags weren’t even close to enough. We ended up getting 1½ yards of gardening soil to fill the rest of the beds. I read about a lot of people adding a mixture of compost, too, but I ended up going with just gardening soil.

The Doing - Planting

Now for the fun part: planting!

I did a lot of research on this, too, but at some point, there is just too much information out there, and I needed to just do it. So, I looked up a couple of things I had saved and then just went to town!

That was definitely one of the most therapeutic things I’ve done, too. What an incredible thing it is to just plant things!

Suddenly, all of my plants that had been sitting in their little pots were all grown up and living in the garden beds! I had mostly plants that were already started, but I planted some seeds, too. I definitely think you could’ve gotten away with just using seeds and done it more cheaply, but this was my first time, and I actually wanted to have something grow.

Along the edges, I planted marigolds and herbs, alternating them around the entire outer edge of each garden bed.

In one bed, I planted broccoli and Brussels sprouts in the middle, with lettuce, arugula, and spinach filling the rest of the space.

In my second bed, I planted peppers—bell peppers, jalapeños, and habanero peppers—with tomatoes in the middle.

In the third bed, I planted zucchini, summer squash, eggplant, and beans, along with some radishes, onions, and carrots.

In the fourth and final bed, I planted cucumbers and strawberries.

Where We Are Now

So, it’s been a month, and where are we now?

GROWING!

Everything has been doing so amazingly, and it truly is something I could’ve never expected! My dream was to be able to go into the backyard and grab something I needed, and that is exactly what I’ve been able to do.

Not only that, but what a peaceful thing it is to be able to grow food!

There truly is such a disconnect between where our food comes from and how it gets onto our plates.

Being able to learn and teach my kids as we go through this new journey together is creating memories that I will cherish forever.

Until next time on my 30 Before 30 List!