Planting the Garden for 2018

Are you ready to get those gardens planted?  We just got ours planted for this upcoming season!

One of my favorite times to blog about is gardening season.  It’s just so refreshing to share some aspects of our lives with each of you, and I LOVE using up that fresh produce to share recipes during the summer season.

We have had quite a time getting the garden planted this year.  In the years past, we already had it planted by now, but it has been so cold lately here in Oklahoma.  Of course today it’s supposed to be 80 degrees but the past 5 weekends we have had freeze warnings or super cold temperatures.  Finally though, my husband worked late into the evening to get our garden planted.

We decided to use some plants this time too instead of all seeds.  The bad thing with rain here is the seeds so easily get washed out.  We decided to use a little bit of both this year.  I still want to go get some carrots and romaine lettuce.  Have you heard about that recall on romaine lettuce?  I’m anxious to plant some of my own because I usually buy it every week.  Hopefully though we are able to enjoy it.  Last year, we had quite a time keeping the bugs off the produce.

We were reading up on ways to keep the squash bugs away, hopefully we can figure out something that will work.  At our old house, they weren’t nearly as bad as they are now but we also live in the country now.  So we are surrounded by lots of trees and fields.

Our daughter also loves to plant and garden as well.  She’s been outside helping us every year since she could basically walk, so has our son.  He wasn’t feeling well last night though so he’ll probably be helping today.  The worst part for our daughter though is that the mosquitoes were in full force last night and she immediately breaks out in hives when she gets even one mosquito bite.

So this poor girl, by the time we came in both arms were hives from her shoulders to her hands.  It was heartbreaking, thankfully by the time she woke up this morning it had gone down considerably.  I’m off to pick up some products to help avoid that too, plus we have a bug zapper on order now.  We usually have one each year but ours broke, so a new one is on the way!

Along with getting our garden planted, we have 5 piles of dirt and rocks in our yard about to be used to rebuild our retaining wall.  It’s likely the bottom of my list of things I want to do right now, but my husband has assured me if we don’t, then we will wake up one day at the bottom of the hill.  I have no doubt though it’s going to look so good when it’s all done.  Right now, we have a rotted wood retaining wall, it’s not even all the way across like it used to be because of the wood rotting away.  Now, it’s going to be redone with huge cement stones.

They are actually recycled cement that gets molded into these stones to use for projects like this.  My husband has done a great job coordinating everything and will be doing a lot of the labor too, which significantly cut the cost down.  These are the times it pays off when your husband is a truck driver delivering to so many construction businesses, he has all sorts of connections now.  This picture above is the before by Sunday this is going to look completely different!  I’m actually pretty anxious to see how it all turns out.  We will be laying sod up on that top level there too that has washed out due to the wall rotting away.

This weekend should be fun, I’ll share some before and afters too of the retaining wall and any tips we may come out with after going through this.  I know here in Oklahoma many people have retaining walls.  I never realized how important they are until recently!

Back to our garden though, what are you planing in yours?

What did we plant in our garden?

• Lettuce
• Onions
• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Yellow Squash
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Sweet Potatoes
• Green Beans
• Okra
• Bell Peppers
• Banana Peppers
• Carrots
• Eggplant
• Butternut Squash
• Strawberries

That’s the list of items we planted, I’m sure there may be something I forgot to add too. We also have a mystery plant.  The tag fell out of it and we can’t figure out what it was.  It doesn’t look like any of our other plants.  So, I guess that means it will be a surprise!

I’m anxious now for all that growth.  Something about being able to grab fresh produce from the backyard just makes my whole world better.  It’s like my happy place!

I also thought it was fun to see this garden update from 2011.  That was our first garden, we’ve grown since then.

Happy gardening season!