2 weeks in...

It has been a few days over 2 weeks since I planted my first garden and my plants are doing excellent. It is so fun and incredibly rewarding watching them grow and flourish. Here are some pictures I took:

Bell Peppers

Cilantro

Cucumbers

Green Beans

Jalapenos

Tomatoes

Watermelon

Trees Galore!!!

Today we (by we I mean my boyfriend) cut back the massive trees covering my garden from the sun! It looks so much better and the veggies will get the much needed sun that they crave! Only downside is that now we have a massive amount of tree branches in our yard with no way to get rid of them unless we want to spend $100!!! Can't wait for our backyard transformation to be complete...it's getting there, slowly but surely!
I will post pics soon :-)

Stepping Stone Remodel

So I was on pinterest (my favorite website ever) yesterday, and I found some ideas of how to spruce up old stepping stones. I took the stepping stones that I had found laying around my yard and flipped them over so that they were smooth side up, and I have started painting them. So far I have only finished a few. One I don't have a picture of on here yet...

This is the finished product..it turned out a lot better than I had anticipated. So I am pretty happy. My garden is going to be so colorful!!!

And to update on the condition of my veggies: Yesterday I had noticed that one of my bell pepper plants and one of my tomato plants were wilting and limp. I trimmed off the dying leaves and any leaves that were touching the soil. This morning I went out there to water them and now the little plants look soooooo much healthier! I am very surprised by their come back!

Day 3 Of My First Garden

Well I noticed a problem with my garden :( it only gets about 3.5-4 hours of direct sunlight a day...it gets some partial light for a while, but I am definitely concerned about the well being of my veggies! I guess we will just have to wait and see what will happen. The reason it doesn't get a whole lot of sun is because my lovely neighbors have a HUGE tree that drapes over my yard and provides a little too much shade...I am going to see if my boyfriend will be willing to cut the portion that comes over onto our backyard, because that would probably give me an additional 2 hours of sun!!!

Here are some update pictures of what I have done:

These are the finished rocks labels that I made. I have them for each of the plants in the box.

I added stepping stones leading to the garden. Still working on the backyard as a whole.

I love the stepping stones! Don't mind the pile of wood in the back ground :)

Baby Veggie Photos

Here are some pictures I just took of my baby veggies :)

Bell Peppers

Cilantro

Cucumbers

Green Beans

Jalapenos

Tomatoes

Watermelons

How I Started My 1st Garden

Today I started my very first vegetable garden! I used an old entertainment center that I had laying around the house, it was a large wooden case, my boyfriend and I removed the glass doors and painted it baby blue.

I think it turned out pretty darn good :)

I planted 7 different types of plants: cilantro x3, jalapenos x4, watermelons x3, tomatoes x4, green beans x4, cucumbers x4, bell peppers x5. 

*before planting*

My boyfriend's dad donated some dirt he had at his house to me, which was a HUGE help, and in addition to the dirt he gave me, I bought vegetable and flower fertilized soil from the store. 

It was A LOT of work shoveling in this dirt and sifting it through an awesome homemade screen (shown sitting on top on the garden box in the picture directly above). My hands are blistered and my whole body is sore, but man do I feel amazing and accomplished!!!

So as I was sifting the dirt, I found a ton of rocks, some that were too small to care about but others that caught my attention...

I decided to use them to label my vegetable. I painted them and I am going to use two rocks per type of veggie. One rock for the name of the plant and one rock will have either 1, 2, or 3 plus signs on it, signaling the amount of water that plant requires. This will help me to not only remember which plant is which, but help me to not over water them. 

This is my garden!! All of the veggies are planted, all I need to do now is finish painting the rocks and toss them in there and waaalllaa, I'll be ready to sit back and enjoy my garden!

I will post again tomorrow with pictures of the finished rocks! :)