Planting Our Garden

Every year during Memorial Day weekend, my family and I make our annual trip to the Little Brook Garden Center located down the street and select some vegetable and herb plants to enjoy during the summer months. We then spend the day preparing the soil and planting everything in the backyard in raised planters. Our favorite vegetables/herbs to grow are tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, basil, thyme, and lavender.

This year we took a slightly different approach and decided to grow our plants from seed beginning in early March, when we were all forced to quarantine inside. My two kids, Sophia age 7 and Lucas age 5, were excited to start the process; a quick search on YouTube and a trip to Home Depot and we were ready to go! We purchased a plant germination dome along with some special soil and seeds. The kids took great joy in participating in dropping the seeds into each hole in the germination dome and I assisted them in labeling each row with the name of the plant. We placed the dome on the kitchen counter and observed each day as the seeds sprouted into seedlings in a matter of five days.

We took the following next steps:

• Repotted each seedling to a larger planting pot so the roots could grow and become more robust. My son reminded me, “Mamma, plants need lots of light, water, and air to survive and we are missing the light!”
• Took a trip back to the Home Depot to pick up special LED and florescent plant lights, which we mounted in shelving located in the basement.
• Provided lots of TLC including many trips to the basement every other morning to water the plants. It eventually resulted in about 35 plants that were ready to live on their own in the great outdoors.
• We lastly had to gradually introduce each plant to the outdoor temperatures to increase their chances of survival once planted in the ground. According to the YouTube experts 😊, this process is known as “hardening off” the plants.
• To align with previous years, we were targeting to officially plant everything Memorial Day weekend but decided to do so one week prior.

The next morning, we walked outside with watering cans in hand to the unpleasant surprise that an unknown critter ate all the plants except for a couple of bean and pea plants. My son’s response made us all laugh. He said, “Mamma, it’s great that we could feed all the animals in the neighborhood last night!”

Although our plants had never been feasted on in past years, I knew that it was a potential risk, especially given how fragile and easily assessible the plants were. Nonetheless, we moved forward with our contingency plan to head to the Little Brook Garden Center and we all had a good laugh along the way. During the ride over, we all took guesses on what animal had wandered into our yard that night. My daughter guessed Peter Rabbit and my son thought it was a giant moose! Our garden is now doing well, and we look forward to enjoying some fresh produce in the coming weeks. I hope you enjoy a few pictures below.

Summer Squash                Beef Steak Tomatoes    Herb Garden