How did my garden grow?

I was inspired to begin gardening when my husband and I finally purchased a home of our own three years ago. We bought an old victorian home on a 1/4 acre of property in the City of Cincinnati. When we first moved in we revamped the flower beds and spent a lot of time caring for our lawn.

We started growing some vegetables our first year with the standard tomato plants that everyone likes to have around. The second year we ramped up and tried a few more veggies. We planted squash, bell peppers, jalapenos and even tried a small bit of corn. That year we did enjoy a lot of squash and a lot of hot peppers but I wanted bigger. I knew that we could potentially replace our store bought produce with our own.. at least during the summer. We have the space to do it. I got obsessed and at the end of that growing season I began planning for the next year. I wanted the whole side yard. A section that was roughly 50x40 feet.

I borrowed two rototillers from my father and then when spring came I took out the yard. It was so much fun. My neighbors probably thought I was losing my mind. It was a lot of work but it was well worth it. All last summer we ate tomatoes, brussels sprouts, broccoli, eggplants (lots of eggplants), squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, lettuce and cabbage among other things.

I have to hand it to my husband for helping me harvest everything we grew last year. I had time to plant but if it weren't for him harvesting each day while I was working at the day job then I'm not sure how long the garden would have lasted. He has also been very handy and helpful in general when it came to helping out when I needed it.

This coming year we hope to be more efficient in our gardening choices. We'll try to plan more with succession planting so that we can have a continuous harvest. We will try to grow more things that we can store away for the winter. We will plan more for our home preserving and plan to work together more often.

This blog will serve as an online journal for us and hopefully help to inspire others to grow some food! It's been difficult to find other local Cincinnati vegetable and herb gardening blogs so I figured I should start one and keep searching. Perhaps I'll end up helping someone or perhaps some readers will be able to answer some questions that I may have.

Next post.... some pictures of last year's garden!