Starting to Garden This Year

We had a local landscaping company--Calendula Farms--turn our (really ugly) front yard into a pretty space.  We've lived here for 3.5 years and while I enjoy gardening, I was not inspired to do all the work myself.  Actually, I had no clue where to even start, and Scott was happy to turn my half-formed ideas into a full-fledged reality.

I knew I wanted less lawn, and more edible or medicinal plants.  I also wanted to take advantage of the full sunlight (when we have it, we do live in the Pacific Northwest after all!)  Scott built me four beautiful raised beds, gave me a nice gravel path, and plenty of border plants--including dwarf blueberries--so that eventually we'll have a little privacy (we live on a busy road.)  He took into account our neighbor's gigantic pine tree that drops all of it's needles and makes all the soil super acidic when planting the beds, and I'm really happy with our choices.

He supplied plants from his nursery, many of which he grew from seeds or cuttings.  I asked specifically for elderberry bushes, and he supplied two different kinds, along with a few types of blueberries, salal berries, seaberries, currents, and calendula, echinacea and belladonna (along with MANY other types of plants--did you know plants are super expensive?  Especially beautiful, organically grown plants!)  I'm so looking forward to collecting berries and leaves to make jams, teas, and healing salves!

In my raised beds, I planted two types of carrots and two types of kale, along with spinach, broccoli raab, beets, lettuce, and peas.  This summer I'm planning on pickling cucumbers, butternut squash, and zucchini.  Everything is sprouting and even thriving with all the recent rain.

My pictures are a little outdated, so I'll try to get some more recent pictures once all the rain stops.

For the back yard, I also started both Roma and grape tomatoes inside--these have since been moved to larger pots and several are going to live with other families (why did I plant 25???)