Patience and Perseverance

Well, it's been a while since we've written a blog.  Life just creates so many obstacles and time seems to just pass by so quickly!  Our garden is coming along.  We've had a couple of upsets.  We've had some successes.  Most of all....we're learning how to be better gardeners.  Here's my lovely, Nic a week or so before we lost one of the corn. 

Our area out here in Huntsville was hit with a round of devastating storms and tornadoes.  We were SO lucky to have been in an area that did not see any major damage.  Most of North Alabama was out of power for about a week so we headed out to our (awesome) friends' house in the Atlanta, Ga area .  When we came back to our house in Huntsville, we realized that we lost some of our plants.   Our poor raspberry was completely destroyed along with most of our seedlings. 

A couple of weeks after the storms, we started discovering animal tracks in the garden.   At first, we thought it was Mr. Man sneaking around in the garden so we paid it no mind.  The tracks started out small, but then they turned into giant holes in the soil.  Roots were being pulled up and two of the black bean plants along with one of the corn stalks....and the bigger of the two, were destroyed!  

Gosh....we were SO proud of that corn.  I was devastated when we walked up to the garden to discover our pride and glory hacked in half on the ground.  

That's when we realized that we had a critter problem.  So, in comes the chicken wire fence.  It goes all the way around the perimeter of the garden box.  It actually looks pretty good.  

It's so crazy to think that 80% of our garden is from seed.  We just invested in some watermelon, green pepper, cherry tomato, and assorted herb seedlings from our local nursery, Bennett's to help make up for what we lost.

We also finished off our herb table bed....and it looks spectacular.  Just like my vision:)

 

I started a sunflower bed in the back of the garden.  Another dumpster diving excursion success.  We found a wooden flower bed fence right here in 5 points.  Perfect, right?  We planted giant mammoth and lemon queen sunflowers with marigold and nasturtium...and all from seed. 

 

Here's what the garden looks like today.  It's starting to come together with patience and perseverance.  

 Sunflower Garden

 Here's our garden table complete with cat grass, cilantro, mint, dill and chives 

with 2 potted cantaloupes and a watermelon.  We're going to have to move the melons soon.

 Probably no corn this year, but we are so proud that this was from seed!  It's about 5 ft. tall already.

 Yummy compost

 We love our beautiful 5 points house and garden :)

 Our new angel trumpet from Bennett's Nursery

 Rosemary, thyme and sage

And our blog would not be complete without an appearance by our house security, Mr. Man.  

He loves running water, so I usually give him a quick drink when I'm watering the garden:)

More to come soon!

 Happy Gardening :)

 Chrisha 

Lots of Seedlings

So we are readying the next group of seedlings to go into the ground. This batch contains Tomatoes and Parsley

 

and Peppers, Watermelon, Honeydew, and Lettuce!

We've done melons before and they were so great, nothing tops a home made smoothie straight from the garden :)

We also got some new tomatoes and an awesome rasberry bush, courtesy of the amazing flying monkey community garden. 

All of the existing seedlings are doing great...I swear the corn is taller every single time I look at it, and the beans are going to need a trellace soon.

And a trip to the garden wouldn't be complete without a visit from Mr. Man

And he's not the only wild animal about, we got a visit from a very large, very friendly bunny who I hated having to chase away

We also spent some time in our other favorite garden, the Flying Monkey Community Garden .They were doing the first big planting of the season so we lent a hand putting a bunch of veggies in the ground

To celebrate the start of an amazing garden, Chrisha (Circle Motion Hoops), and our friend Amber ( Head Stash Products) put on a fire show

Til Next Time...Happy Gardening!  -Nic

New Beginnings

Yup, we're doing it this year!  Finally planting our first garden after some inspiration.

Our parents came into town a couple of weeks ago.  We drove all around town and had such a great time.  While up on foggy Monte Sano Mountain, we stumbled upon a wonderful community garden.

We also have a lovely arts community here in Huntsville called the Flying Monkey.  They are located in the Lowe Mill facility (we absolutely adore this place).  The Flying Monkey also started their own community garden which you can view here.  Another very inspiring garden.

With that being said...we knew that we could start our own actual garden.  We tried last year in just containers, but we're going all out this year.  Watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, corn, tomatoes, beans, lettuce, spinach...and more!  And 90% of those were started from seed!

 This year we decided to try out square foot gardening/raised bed.  We built our own box (very exciting...I got to use a drill for the first time!), visited our local nursery for amazing topsoil, and sweated the day away in the garden with our cat, Mr. Man. 

We even started our first compost pile!  Lots of grass clippings, dead leaves and turning, turning, turning with a pitchfork.  The frame is made from some old palettes that we found on the side of the road!  I'm telling you, Huntsville has the best dumpsters for diving in to.  

 We also found a random kid's table on the side of the road that we are converting into a planter for herbs and cat grass.  Here's what the garden looks like today.

More to come soon...Happy Gardening!  -Chrisha