I'm dreaming up big beautiful things for our garden this year. This garden will be a labor of love and something that won't all get done right away. I've found the slower I go with things, the more willing my husband lets me get with my dreams. He gets overwhelmed by me. ha!
This past Sunday was a beautiful 80 degree day in Ohio and we spent the afternoon fishing on a pontoon! After beginning stuck inside living the life of a couch potato, due to a injury I had back in March, this was my chance to escape! I thoroughly enjoy pontoonin'. Fishing, soaking up the sun, and kids dipping their toes in the water. Jaxon and I may have accidently dropped Dad's fishing pole in the lake but overall it was a great outing! Whoops, I may owe Aaron a new pole. Aaron caught a few small mouth Bass and his friend Jeff caught a decent size Walleye.
Ohio weather is funny. We can experience all four seasons in one day or in one week. This past Sunday was gorgeous! The beginning of this new week, we're stuck inside due to three days of rain, and chilly 50 degree weather. My daughter's baseball games are sure to be cancelled. That won't stop me from day dreaming, planning, and prepping for my garden! In Ohio, most farmers start planting the weekend after Mother's Day. This is usually when we are guaranteed to be past all the late frosts and night time temps don't fall any lower than the 40's. I was hoping and praying I would be able to start planting seeds in my garden by the weekend after Mother's Day too. We're in growing zone 5b/6a.
I recently injured myself and was told I wouldn't be back to walking till around the beginning of June! I've been laid up since mid March and that felt like forever to wait till June. Thankfully, I have been able to heal pretty fast and may be cleared to walk and return to work by next Monday! A whole month sooner! I can't wait to get started on our new garden space and be able to enjoy the summer with my family!
I'm a visual person. I love doodling and creating my visions on paper. Now this is "sorta" to scale. I say sorta, because I had my mom step the side yard with her feet. It's about 35 mom feet wide from the property line to the back side of our shed. haha. Please tell me I am not the only person who uses this method of measuring?! I did get some help later from my children and we measured the new garden space to be about 40-45 feet wide and about 55 feet long. That's just the back half of our side yard, that I plan to start with for the new garden space.
Growing up we always had a garden in our back yard. I wasn't a big fan of the labor that went into it, the weird bugs, and the garden snakes. I am terrified of snakes. My favorite thing about the garden was growing our own pumpkins for Halloween, the tall sunflowers, and the bountiful amounts of green beans.
I've been so anxious to start a garden with my kids since we bought our house three years ago. My daughter and I wanted to attempt growing our own strawberries. I was totally there for it! After researching as much as I could learn about strawberries, we went to Home Depot and brought home our new babies.
Last summer, I convinced my husband to let me have a garden. It was something I had been wanting to do and something he didn't think we needed or had room for in our yard. He didn't grow up gardening like me. I told him we would keep it small to start and see how it went.
I started planning and mapping our yard, while he had a bird over it. We disagreed over the size of garden, the placement of the garden, the cost of the garden, and every detail. It was a silly disagreement, but I wanted my garden so bad that we tried our best to agree on the final decision. Which in the end wasn't all bad.
We planted our garden last year in probably the shadiest part of our yard. I'm laughing so hard at this still. A garden needs at least 6+ hours of sunlight in order for the plants to grow. I've read so many articles that say morning sun is better than evening sun because morning sun is less harsh, but evening sun hours last longer. I've also read that you should plant your garden on the south side of your property because that gets the most amount of sun. Either way, our garden was neither. Our garden was planted near our house, under a tree, and saw 6 hours of shaded sun between late morning and early afternoon.
I say this wasn't all bad because we still got plenty of vegetables and fruits from our garden. I even planted some new vegetables I've never grown before. I discovered they needed shade and cooler temps to produce. All in all, half the garden did very well and the other half did very bad. It was a learning experience and this year we're moving it to the location I wanted it in originally.
See the nice sunny patch of grass with the tall arborvitae shrubs lining the back of our yard? Yup, that's where the garden is moving too. It gets all day sun and some shade, mostly morning shade, but it is the most ideal location for a garden. Plus, our neighbor is totally cool with us having a garden close to property lines between us. Our "left" side yard and our neighbors "right" side yard butt up and is waisted space. We don't use it to play in and they don't use that side of their yard either. Ultimately, I think it's a great use of space and will beautify our yard and this corner of our neighborhood.
Garden Planning 2021
I started planning our garden in a dot journal so I could semi draw it to scale. I'm still trying to narrow down what types of vegetables I want to grow this year. I openly admit that last year I went a bit crazy and planted ALL the things. I think we need to narrow it down to our absolute favorite things and practical items we will actually consume. I will also be relocating my blueberries to the new garden space and the strawberries too after their harvest this year. I'm also planning a cut flower garden which I've never done before. I am so inspired by all these cut flower gardens I see on Pinterest and Instagram. Plus, how lovely would it be to have a fresh bouquet inside all the time?! Bring on the sunshine and gorgeous garden oasis!
What I'm visualizing for our future garden:
raised garden boxes
3-4 foot wide gravel walking paths between boxes/beds
shade loving plants / vegetables by the tree in the side yard; like broccoli
transplant the strawberries in the fall
relocate (and pray they survive) the blueberry bushes + add 1 to 2 more bushes
plant lots of green beans
I love garden arch trellises made from cattle panels, but my husband rolls his eyes.
rows + rows of cut flower varieties like Sunflowers, Zinnias, Snapdragons, Tulips, and Daffodils, and for the beauty of it- Lily of the Valley.
plant the 10 packets of wildflower seeds I own
not only beautify our side yard, but our neighborhood too.
a chicken coop + run
sitting area amongst the garden to sit back and soak it all in
Due to the cost of wood, I am not sure what will happen. I would love to make these gorgeous raised garden boxes and a jaw dropping chicken coop. Except, I don't want to spend $100 or more on one raised garden box when I have intentions to eventually have 8-10 or more. I think for now until the price of wood drops, we are going to hunt down some free palettes. We will make some decently size garden boxes from the reclaimed wood. They should last us a year or two. We can then build new garden boxes from new wood one at a time, when needed after prices drop back down. The garden boxes will be 3-4 foot wide and anywhere from 6-8 feet long. I'll post exact measurements after we get them built.
I'll be laying landscape fabric between the garden boxes to make gravel paths. We loved the gravel paths we had last year between our beds. This year I for see us getting the landscape fabric down and let it start killing off the grass. As for the gravel, we will probably get that in time as we can afford it. It is not something I need right away to be happy.
As for the placement of where vegetables, fruits, and flowers will be planted, that will come in time because I'm a bit undecided on where I want things and what all I will plant. I do know that the blueberry bushes will go on the back side of the property in a nice uniform line. This way their shadows will cast in the same direction as the arborvitae bushes that line our back yard. The blueberry bushes are small right now but as they age and grow, they may become larger. This should work well to prevent any other crops being shadowed.
My Garden Inspiration
all these photos were saved from Garden Pinterest Board found here.
I would love to plant green beans, some tomatoes, jalapeños, broccoli, and maybe try my hand at salad gardening. Salad gardening is planting all things you would eat in a salad (lettuces, tomatoes, cucumber, carrot, etc.) I'll be able to narrow down my final decisions once I purchase my seeds and starter plants. A lot of it will also be determined by how many boxes we can get made or if we till some areas of the land too. As for flowers, I would love to plant sunflowers, zinnias, snapdragons, wildflowers, tulips and daffodils for spring, and whatever else catches my eye and interest.
My Chicken Coop Inspiration
all these photos were saved from my Chicken Coop Board on Pinterest here.
I am over the moon excited that my husband finally agreed to let me have chickens! My dreams of being a chicken farmer are not too far away. We live in the village that is a 4H community and encourages farm life within the village. I would really love to build our coop except the cost of wood is against me. I want to build exactly what I want and the size I want. We're considering having the Amish build us a coop to save us time and money. I am totally okay with giving ourselves a year to build a chicken coop and run. This way we can get the chicks next spring and enjoy raising hens next year.
We've also considered using the shed we already have on our property as the chicken coop. This would require us to put up a new building all the stuff we currently have in the shed. The shed would work beautifully! I just don't think putting up a new building is in the cards for us; I could be wrong. The other thing we have to consider about putting up a new building is permits. That's why if we put up a chicken coop that is raised off the ground like some of my inspiration ideas, we would not need a permit from the village to have the structure in our yard.
I'll keep you updated with how we go about the chicken coop and the garden. You can follow along on the process by following us on Instagram @daffodilandlilyhomestead or @jaclynrosehome. That's currently where we're at - our spring + summer garden plans for 2021. What are you hoping to grow this year?
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