That was the space after I finished working it. That black trash can if silled with all the weeds and rocks that we plucked and pulled by HAND. We broke up all the clumps of hard dirt by HAND. It was crazy. We just moved and had no idea what this yard was going to have before we moved and we also had no extra funds for hundreds of dollars of equipment to do the work for us. So, I sat... on my butt... and took my little hand shovel and scooped, grabbed a weed and smashed the clumps. It was probably really funny except that it was a TON of work and I was REALLY proud of myself and nothing grew. Nothing. Not at all.
Here is after we built our mounds for our viney plants and our rows for our pole plants. At the end farthest from the house, that mound... yeah, it grew a cucumber for like 3 days and then the poor little guy dried an acidicless death. :( Broke my heart. I had high hopes for that fighter. Then one by one all of my tomato plants died. Well, except for the one in the very back. That little guy is still holding strong today! I'll have to get you a picture. :p
This sadness had me frustrated, disappointed and ready to never grow another thing again. Well, not quite. See... It seemed like the Earth was trying to tell me I had a black thumb and in the event of some type of apocolypse I would either be killed quickly, not allowed in any of those groups that hoard food just in case which would then result in me starving to death or eating poison berries in desperation. Maybe I should start hoarding food. Hmm.
Anyways... I started thinking back to elementary school where we put a lima bean on a wet papertowel and into a plastic baggie so we could watch it germinate. I didn't have any lima beans (hate those damn things) so I figured let's do it with cantaloupe. I mean why not, right?
So I did. And about a week later (because I'd forgotten about them thinking it was a hopeless possibility) my husband brought the bag to me and low and behold!!!
I couldn't believe it! I was so damn excited. Seriously. Very excited. I was like a kid at Christmas as I ran to the kitchen window multiple times a day just to see if they had grown anymore. This actually caused me to do more research about the baggie method and it's actually a well known method of starting your garden. And it is simple and can really give the kiddos an opportunity to watch something grow! The top pic was literally just several days before the second. The growth was tremendous!
I also started other plants in baggies!
My cucumber seeds germinated within a few days.
So did my lettuce seeds!
I also did carrots, watermelon and yellow squash... and the carrots did germinate but by then the excitement of my new "toys" had worn off I guess because I didn't get pictures. I'm a lame-o. And for some reason, my watermelon and squash never did germinate which kind of worked out because in my excitement I forgot that I'd have to buy containers and soil for all of my plants which can rack up quite the bill.
That's okay though because in about 70ish days I will be saving money one carrots, cucumbers, cantaloupe, tomatoes (we went and bought another plant), strawberries (I haven't mentioned them yet but they have a story too) and garlic (they too have a story - maybe I have like a grey thumb... I can grow but very carefully?) LOL
I have officially gotten everything transplanted to my porch-top garden and have excitedly checked them every single day! Check out the next post to see how they are all growing!
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