Hello gardeners,
Just wanted to show off my chaotic garden! Gen Z, first time gardening, no experience besides taking care of succulents, cacti and tropical houseplants.
Thank you for everyone in this blog, I learned so much from past posts and seeing everyone’s gardens!
In total, I spent $43.86 on this garden, which blows my mind! I was very lucky that the previous owners already had the stone beds and soil in place. Also a privilege that my parents already had gardening equipment (huge shovel, hand shovel, hand rake).
The soil is very clay-like and not that great so I needed to amend it. I bought a huge bag promix soil, 1 bag of composted sheep manure, 2 sets of 5-pack yard waste bags, and then seeds for:
- Burpee Super Sweet 100 tomato
- Burpee Gourmet Lettuce Blend
- Burpee Arugula
- McKenzie Kohlrabi
- McKenzie Bean Tendergreen Improved (Bush)
- McKenzie Bean Stringless Green Pod (Bush)
- Berton Spinach
I started off with removing the existing plants (daylilies, weeds, and some chives). Then I amended the soil by adding promix soil. It took a while to remove the daylilies so I sowed rows at a time. I later added composted sheep manure to the sprouted bean plants, amended the last row of soil with sheep manure and then planted the tomatoes, and then amended the soil in the boxwood plot with the remaining promix soil and the remaining sheep manure.
Rows – Plot 1
- 4 Tomato plants
- Stringless bean plants
- Kohlrabi and existing wild chives
- Tendergreen beans
- Tendergreen beans
Plot 2
- 3 rows of lettuce
- 1 row of arugula
- 4 rows of kohlrabi
I also have 3 tomato plants in big planters on the stone steps. Those planters were from my old tropical plants, which I rescued from a dumpster at university. The plants died last year when I went on vacation but I kept the pots.
My beans are definitely overplanted and crowded but I’ve decided to leave them. I can’t bear cutting my plants down but they are all producing beans so it’s fine. My kohlrabi was also overcrowded so I dug some of the weaker plants up and moved them to the empty bed.
To create more support for my beans and tomatoes, I made a makeshift stick and string trellis with leftover wood offcuts from the shed, 3 rebar sticks that I found in the yard (really unsafe lol! must have been previous owner’s) and string we had lying around.
My parents also had these old wire cages (not the greatest but it’s fine), that I used for the tomatoes. I might add more string around each cage to make a makeshift tomato cage to support the offshoots of branches.
Definitely a chaotic setup but it’s really fun and I already got a first harvest of beans and spinach. If you haven’t gardened before, I encourage you to do it! Even starting small with pots outside!
This has been huge for my mental health and forcing myself to go outside on days when I have been really depressed.
If you have any advice for me, I would also appreciate it, I’ve just been taking it day by day and fixing problems as they come up (eg. beans being way too tall and having to stake them).
Thank you so much for reading!
solafiya
