Saturday Snippet: Our Garden

In this post I talk all about our garden, one of my favorite topics. I answer some questions I’ve been asked about gardening, specifically how much work it is, how to get started and if it’s even worth it. And of course there’s lots of pictures from our garden throughout.

Hello my Friends!

It’s been a while since I’ve given you a Saturday Snippet post and I’m excited to share about our garden today.

Our family has been growing a garden ever since we moved into this house (coming up on 13 years ago this month). It’s something that Brandon and I both love. It’s a lot of work and there are definitely some years our garden has been better than others.

This year’s garden is kind of a okay-ish year. We struggled a bit at the beginning with a huge grasshopper infestation. Everywhere you stepped, thousands of baby grasshoppers would jump away. It was crazy. My son let the chickens out and that solved a big part of our problem, but it stunted the plant’s growth for few weeks and we are still recovering from that.

But in spite of that our garden is growing and it’s starting to reach my favorite stage of the garden. When everything is beautiful, lush and green and we are just starting to enjoy the harvest. I sure love this stage of the garden.

A friend asked me a few months ago some questions about our garden and I sent her an e-mail with my responses. I decided I’d share some of those responses here in case anyone else has questions about starting a garden.

First a bit of background

We’ve had a garden since we first moved in this house in 2005. It has varied in size. We started out small and then progressed bigger and bigger for a few years until we ran out of space and then it’s pretty much stayed the same ever since. We have a ½ acre of land and one of the reasons we bought it was so we could have a big garden. It has always been important to us so we have put it as a priority.

Having said that, there have definitely been times when our garden is less than desirable. The last two years actually have been a fairly big disappointment. When I am pregnant or have a little one it does make it more difficult to get out there and pick weeds and stuff so the garden suffers.

How much work is a garden?

It depends on what you want to get out of it and also how much you know. Every year it gets easier because you learn more things and shortcuts and stuff. For example, we’ve learned tricks to cut down on weeds and watering, etc.

Is it really doable with young kids?

Yes. For sure. But I would definitely recommend starting small and growing as you learn, rather than trying to do a large or even medium sized garden at first. It’s a great way to teach the little ones about plants and where our food comes from. You can make a little patch for them to grow a garden too. We always started out with radishes (even though no one in our family really loves to eat them unless it’s on a salad) because they are so fast and are fun for kids to grow.

The main thing is to not set too high of expectations for the harvest for the first few years as you are learning. If you go into it with the expectation that this will be a learning experience for you and your kids, then anything you get from the harvest will be a huge surprise and blessing.

You seem to be able to pull it off on a much larger scale than what I have in mind. Is it a whole family affair?

For us it is a family affair for the most part, but having said that when the kids were small most of the work fell to Brandon and I. The boys are actually starting to get helpful now that they are 10 and 13. We usually try to make it fun for them by having early Saturday morning be the time we work in the garden and then the afternoons doing something fun as a family together as a reward.

But Is it doable with a husband who is supportive but who doesn’t necessarily have the time or commitment level to spend a lot of hours on it?

I’ll be honest and say Brandon is a huge reason the garden happens every year. If it was up to me I’d probably spend half the year measuring it out and planning and then never get around to doing it. That’s just my personality. He is the go getter that just makes sure it gets done. But then I am more the maintainer, the waterer, the one who makes sure the weeds are picked, the harvester, and the one who preserves all the food. So I’d say the work is probably divided pretty close between him and I but again I would start small if you think you’ll be doing a lot of the work yourself.

Do you have any favorite resources that might be helpful to a beginner?

1. A book I would recommend is [amazon_textlink asin=’B002XNJA1M’ text=’this book by Gordon Wells’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thecookstreat-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’3706ad31-9b85-11e8-8618-077e45c63e2e’] (unsponsored aff. link). I have his first edition and we’ve used his ideas for a lot of our gardening. I took a class from the guy and he gave me a ton of great info that really changed the way we garden and the methods we still use today.
2. We always buy seeds online to get good quality seeds. It makes a huge difference in how successful your harvest is. We usually go with Stokes seeds (unsponsored plug) and they have been very good quality and reliable.
3. I always buy tomatoes and peppers as seedlings from a local nursery now because with little kids it is just too much work babysitting those seedlings for that many months until they were ready to plant (and I highly recommend going that route rather than trying to grow tomatoes and peppers from seeds). Pretty much everything else we plant directly into the soil, but that will depend on what your growing season is like where you live too. Melons are another one that you may want to buy seedlings, but for me it’s not quite as important as the tomatoes and peppers. I usually do some of each (seeds and seedlings) but I’ve noticed the seedlings from the nursery usually come on a bit earlier than the plants I sow from seeds directly in the ground.

And FINALLY…The question on everyone’s mind:

Is a garden worth it?

I can say a garden is totally worth it in my opinion. Maybe not necessarily financially (depending on where you live). Watering is expensive here in Utah with our hot summers and dry climate. That makes a garden costly. But for so many reasons we still choose a garden every year and it’s always been worth it. Here are a few things that make it worth it for us:

1. It’s a project for the family to work on together. This has been a huge blessing to have and to be able to teach our kids the lessons learned from reaping and sowing.
2. The harvest (obviously) when it is bounteous is always a huge blessing because we eat healthier as a result because we have to. It’s taught us to learn how to incorporate more vegetables into our meals and snacks.
3. Mental refreshment – our garden has turned into my haven that I go to when I am stressed about life. It seems like it’s always hard to get myself out there but once I’m there I don’t want to leave and I always come back refreshed and much able to deal with my challenges. There’s something relaxing and calming to the soil about working in the soil that you really can’t get any other way.

Okay my friends now it’s your turn. Do you have any thoughts or questions about gardening? I’d love to hear from you.

Happy Gardening!

Disclaimer: post contains affiliate links for items on Amazon.