A Growing We Will Go

I knew when I moved out to our current house that I wanted a garden. I mean, come on, we have 35 acres! Most of that is (currently) a wheat field we rent out but we still have a LOT of land we can do with what we want.

I've always liked the idea of growing some of my own food. It's so much cheaper, you know what was used to grow it and where it came from plus you get the satisfaction of knowing that your hard work paid off and is on your dinner table! We had a garden growing up in NE but I certainly didn't appreciate it back then (it was just work to me then) like I would now.

After our struggle to plant some decent trees and shrubs (and dig holes for fence posts) I knew our ground was pretty tough and it would take some doing to get soil rich enough to grow anything. Last year we placed down some railroad ties that we were given (free, woohoo!) and hauled in some dirt from the wheat field to start a raised garden.
I spent all of this last year throwing fruit and vegetable scraps, as well as coffee grounds and eggshells, into our garden spot to do my own composting. In May Jim used the tractor to till the ground up (and mix in my scraps), add in a few bags of top soil and off we went.

I have a lot of things I'd love to try and plant but I usually have a black thumb when it comes to plants so I was a little cautious about what I was going to try. I also used my mom's suggestion to just plant things that would grow above ground for this year, just in case the ground was still pretty tough.

As of July 10th, here are our crops....

Corn! (I had to go for it, I am a Nebraskan and all)

 Watermelon! (seeds courtesy of my in-laws)

 ...This one's not quite as big...

 My zucchini is rockin!

 Some green beans (and a cute kitty in the background...)

 And my pride and joy...my yellow squash! HOLY MOLY! It's HUGE!!

 It's even sprouting flowers!

We also ended up with an unexpected plant and it's pumpkin!

I went to pick up Emmett from play school one day and was handed a little sprout in a baby food cup. They planted it at school and watched it grow. The teacher laughed saying she wasn't sure if it would do anything but there it is! When I first planted it it wilted pretty fast but it must have just been shock because it's growing!

I did plant 2 other things in my garden that didn't grow at all! I tried green peppers and cucumbers but neither of them came up. :(

I guess that's better than this tomato plant...

It seemed like it was doing really well for a while, growing flowers and even a tiny baby tomato (you can barely see the little green ball in the center of the plant). Unfortunatly my black thumb hit the tomatoes 2 years in a row because it has died. I had this pot because I tried tomatoes last year, before we had our garden. It didn't even get flowers before it died. Since I still had the pot in place I decided to just plant them there again. I think next year I'll actually plant them in the garden and hope that 3rd time's a charm.

So I'll keep you up to date on what we actually end up harvesting. Some people will just laugh at me but I'm so proud of it! It's amazing when something actually grows and reaps a product. It's even more amazing when it comes from my hands, considering how many plants I've killed in my time.