Garden Lessons

My garden is gone and I look forward to start planting seeds at home next year early…maybe February. I have learned quite a few valuable lessons thus far from gardening.

- If I can make veggies grow, then anyone can plant a garden. As I have previously shared with you all, I tend to kill any living flower by over watering it. So I was very nervous about planting a garden from seeds this summer. But when a friend from church taught a lesson about gardening, I decided to give a shot. Now I look forward to plant our little bucket garden next year.

- Even if you do not have space for garden, you can still find room to grow a few tomato and squash plants. Our home is surrounded by forest, thus the land lacks access to sunshine. So when my friend introduced the concept of bucket garden, I jumped on the band wagon. And have enjoyed the joyous ride of enjoying my own veggies. The idea is that you use a bucket, drill holes on the bottom, fill up the bucket with dirt and plant your seeds. Simple as 1, 2, 3!

- Your garden can be as expensive as you make it out to be. Let me explain! I decided to shop at Lowe’s for garden supplies and about have a heart attack when my total came to be around $70. Yes, I know…it would have been cheaper for me to buy veggies from a local farmer than to plant them myself. But along the way I learned that instead of buying expensive buckets, I could just stop by our grocery store and ask ladies at the bakery department to give me 5 gallon buckets. The buckets are used for icing and once the icing is gone, our bakery department throws the buckets away…so I stopped by a few times and accumulated a dozen of buckets for free! Also instead of purchasing mature plants, you can save money by growing plants from seeds. I had a great success with growing tomatoes, squash and green beans from seeds. Once again, if I can do it, you can do it.

- The garden is in need of your TLC (tender loving care). I was about to give up on one squash plant that looked too tiny to produce anything. Because I accidentally forgot to punch holes on the button of the bucket, I almost drowned the squash plant when we had rain. But instead of throwing it away, I decided to love on it and take care of it. To my surprise weeks later I noticed a beautiful yellow flower on the plant, which later turned into squash.

- You don’t have spent a fortune on expensive organic bug sprays. A friend of mine recommended a simple solution to get rid of small, red, aggravating bugs by mixing oil and water together. The result was the same as if I had spent $10 on a bottle of organic bug killer…the pests were gone.

- It takes time for you to see the fruits of your labor. For some odd reason I thought that my tomatoes would grow over night. Hmmm…what I wrong or what?! It took months and I mean months before I picked my very first red tomato. However, I learned that green beans grow and produce very quickly, while squash was growing neither too slow nor too fast. So lesson learned, I must plant my tomato plants inside before April.

I would like to hear from you…how did you garden turn out this year?