Vegetable Garden

Last summer, I half-heartedly planted a vegetable garden in a small plot in my backyard.  I didn’t really pay much attention to it because by the time I got home from work it was late and I was too exhausted to care.  Plus there was a groundhog living nearby who loved to decimate my vegetables and herbs.  So at the end of the summer I was left with a handful of green tomatoes that were too high up on the vine for the groundhog to reach and this oddly shaped cucumber that clearly suffered from some odd watering pattern.  This year, I vowed to plant and take care of a vegetable garden, complete with a wire fence to keep out that freaking groundhog. 

Garden, complete with wire fence

 I wanted to start my garden from seeds but I acted a little late on that since I didn’t get my garden going until May.  So my parents went down to the local Shop Rite and picked up some tomato plants, a ton of parsley plants, basil plants, and lettuce plants. 

They left them on the ground.  The groundhog had eaten most of them overnight. 

Tomato bud

I was like “that’s it! We’re going to Lowe’s.”  We scoured the garden center for the perfect wire mesh (I knew which one would work because there was a picture of a bunny in a pen on it).  My dad said it wasn’t going to be enough because groundhogs can climb (what?) so he decided he should run an electric current through the fence.  I convinced him not to and proposed a better solution using something I had learned at the zoo: bury the fence about ½ of a foot into the ground.  My dad hammered the stakes into the ground (me with a sledgehammer is hilarious and terrifying) and hooked up the fence.  That little sucker had his last free meal…

Squash buds

So therefore without a groundhog to curb it back my garden has exploded almost overnight.  The squash plant (I think it’s the green squash) has taken over the garden, covering my basil and lettuce plants with its broad leaves.  They seem to be holding their own, and we were actually able to make a salad with some of the lettuce leaves the other night.  There’s nothing more delicious than eating food from your garden, and I’m starting to see tiny buds where tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers will grow from.  But all of this produce means I need to find some recipes, especially for all of that darn parsley…I’ll keep you all updated

Little update: we have a second squash plant in the front of the house in a giant pot and this morning I saw lots of big yellow flowers!  Yay squash. 

Pepper bud

Basil plants and tons of parsley.
What am I going to do with all of this parsley?

Lettuce plants, the first produce we got to enjoy
from the garden. 

Not sure what is growing in my compost pile, but when
we put compost on our garden there must have been some
pumpkin seeds from Thanksgiving in it, because it looks like
there are pumpkins growing in my garden

Posted by Ali B at 11:10 AM