The NON-professional beginners guide to starting your own organic vegetable garden

I've gotten a lot of questions on how we went about the process of growing our own organic vegetables, after having mentioned our garden in a post called 'Why healthy and conscious eating is so important to us'. People seemed to be especially interested in how to start a garden, how to maintain it and whether or not it would be a lot of work to do so. First off, I'd like to say that neither Adrian nor myself have a lot of experience when it comes to gardening and growing stuff. Last year was our first attempt at growing our own food and, surprisingly, it went better than expected. Despite having had a very short and wet season, we managed to harvest quite a bit of produce and were more than happy with the overall experience. If you're looking for tips and information from seasoned and professional organic farmers, then this post is probably not for you. If you're like us - busy with day jobs and work around the homestead and exhausted, trying to raise two children under 3 - and want to grow your own organic vegetables with very little to no effort at all, I'll happily share what we - new and inexperienced homesteaders and hobby backyard farmers - did to get started and some of the mistakes we've made:

• Order or buy organic heirloom seeds: Don't just buy regular seeds at the store and think it will give you healthy veggies because you're not using pesticides. If the seeds you've purchased are not organic to begin with, the pesticides are already in them and will also be in your veggies, once they're ready to harvest.   

• Start your seeds indoors: We have started our seeds indoors last winter, but I have to admit that it was a major pain for us. We live in a tiny cottage with two little ones that love to dig in the dirt whenever you're not looking and simply don't know where to keep the plants, until they're big enough to be transplanted. We were constantly moving them from one place to the next. We also lost quite a few plants, due to little fingers and during the transplanting process and had to start from scratch outside anyways. We're just going to plant straight into the outside garden (until we find a place indoors to start the seedlings properly) and see what happens. As I said, we did manage to harvest quite a lot of veggies, despite having started straight in the outside garden; However, If you do have the space and want to harvest more and earlier in the season, I do recommend starting indoors. Here's a link that tells you exactly how to go about it: http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/start_seeds.html

 

• Choose the right spot: Our property is very wet, since it is located right next to a creek and a big part of it is marsh land. So we really had to pick the right spot for our garden. Pick a spot that gets sun and lots of it (minimum of 6 hours a day) and make sure it is not exposed to high winds. Don't pick a spot that doesn't have proper drainage. You don't want puddles just sitting in your garden for days on end. Just watch your land after a heavy rainfall to find out which areas dry faster and which areas are always kind of muddy and wet. If your soil can't get rid of excess water, it will damage and eventually kill your plants. 

• Build a raised bed: This is really not hard to do, and your veggies will grow a lot better than in a yard-level garden, because it gives the roots more room to grow. We basically just screwed four boards together and filled it with soil.  

• Enrich your soil: Instead of buying soil and fertilizers at the store, we simply made our own. A friend of ours provided us with a lot of horse manure, which we then mixed with leaves, grass clippings and soil from our yard. Our plants did really well, so I guess they liked it. You can, of course, use your own compost as well. We don't really have that option, since we pretty well feed all our kitchen scraps to our chickens. This year we'll get another load of horse manure and mix it with our own chicken manure, plus leaves and grass clippings. Hopefully it will give us even better results.

• Start small and pick only a few easy to grow veggies for your first year: Don't start with two or three gardens and plant more veggies than you'll ever be able to eat. Start with one garden and plant only as much as you need to provide for your family. See how you'll do and how much you're harvesting and get a feel for it before expanding. You don't want to overdue it and ruin your backyard farm experience, simply because you took off more than you could chew. Here's a list of easy to grow veggies: Beets, Garlic, Carrots, Kale, Beans, Broccoli, Peas, Potatoes, Lettuce, Peppers, Radishes, Summer squash, Zucchini, Tomatoes, Winter squash and Herbs. I plant my herbs in separate planters because I like to have them close to the house. 

• Plan you're layout: Since we didn't really know what we were doing when we planted our first garden and didn't do a lot of research either (again, because we have two little ones and after they're in bed, we're usually too tired to do research and we don't really want to either. Learning by doing is what works best for us) we kind of planted everything and just stood back and watched the magic happen, and magical things did happen in some areas of our garden. In others... not so much. Since we hadn't grown veggies before, we didn't really know what some of the plants would look like and how big the plants would grow. The tomato plants, snap peas, cucumbers, beans and zucchini grew like crazy and quickly took away the space and sunlight other plants - like lettuce and beets - needed to grow and survive. We planted our veggies too close together and didn't think about the layout enough before planting. We also didn't know that these plants would grow a lot better vertically. Here's a link with some tips on how to best grow these types of vegetables: http://www.vegetable-gardening-with-lorraine.com/vertical-vegetable-gardening.html

• Fence it: When our plants first started growing and they were only tiny, fragile little things, we kept discovering uprooted plants just lying in the dirt. I was quick to blame it on the coons around here, since they're usually the ones getting into our garbage and make a huge mess. Turns out it was our own chickens getting in there and pecking at the plants. We bought a few poles and some chicken wire, fenced it in and haven't had any problems since. 

• Control those bugs and hungry insects: There is nothing more frustrating than watching your plants and vegetables grow and thrive, just to discover that bugs and insects are feasting on them and ruin your crop. But the last thing you want to do is use chemicals on your organic garden. Here's a link for some organic pesticides that won't harm your plants or produce: http://homeguides.sfgate.com/homemade-organic-pesticide-vegetables-45069.html 

• Care and maintenance: All we really did to our garden was water it every evening (unless it rained that day), weed it occasionally, harvest the produce as soon as it was ready, and planted new seeds to replace the ones we pulled out and don't regrow on their own - like carrots, beets and radishes. It was really rather easy. I'm sure we could've had a better crop and more produce with some more intense care but for now, this is what we did and it works for us. We are planning on expanding this year and build a second garden bed. I'll let you know how this years crop turns out.  

I'll finish this post with this neat link about 16 kitchen scraps you can regrow time and time again. Definitely going to try some of those this year:   

http://www.goodshomedesign.com/16-kitchen-scraps-that-you-can-re-grow/

Happy growing everyone. May this season turn out better than the last. I hope this post was helpful, answered some of your questions and maybe even inspired one or two people to start growing their own vegetables. If this year is going to be your first attempt at gardening, let me know how it went. If you've got further questions or even tips or helpful information on the subject, don't hesitate to comment or email me. If you liked this post, then don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss the next one. Good luck!

Things that annoy and frustrate me to no end and how I move past them...

Parenthood can be very hard on you and very stressful, especially if you're the one staying at home. If I don't get a break every once in a while - and sometimes taking a break is simply not possible for quite a long time, for various reasons - I do get frustrated easily and tiny little things will set me off and annoy me to no end. Here is a short ;-) list of things that drive me absolutely bonkers and make me want to scream:

• Pulling out the last wet wipe, after you've already opened the diaper, and you just know that one wipe is not going to cut it
• your finger slipping off the wet wipe  
• having just spent the last 45 minutes bundling up the kids to get out of the house in the winter, and smelling a poop, just as you're strapping them into the car seat
• opening an avocado I just bought at the store and it's already rotten
• little finger prints on my glasses, which is a daily occurrence nowadays   

• Waking up to a cold house every morning and having to start a fire, before the first sip of coffee
• Mosquitoes, black flies, horse flies and wasps. In short, anything that stings and doesn't provide me with honey
• stepping in dog poop (nowadays mostly chicken poop) or chewing gum
• This, after just having bathed her (I know it's my fault for bathing her before dinner, but coming to that conclusion just makes me even angrier, because I don't like having nobody to blame but myself)

• broken beer bottles and cigarette butts on playgrounds (there's not a lot that makes me angrier, since I had to dig more than one nasty butt out of my babies mouth last summer and, once, even a piece of glass, which could've done some serious damage to my child. Just throw your stuff into the nearest garbage can, for God's sake, and stop endangering the health and safety of other people's children)
• getting to the store and realizing you don't have change for the grocery cart
• a screaming baby or toddler tantrum when you're having a bad day
• running out of hot water in the shower, especially in the wintertime
• having to shave my legs (whoever started this and thought it to be a great idea, was obviously bored, didn't know what to do with herself and certainly did not have children, trying to climb into the tub with her, fully clothed)
• I mean, come on! Just finish it and throw out the empty container

• giving yourself a hernia, trying to open a mason jar you desperately need to open to get on with your dinner preparations
• people seeing you struggle, trying to handle your kids and say things like, "You sure got your hands full." I know most of them are just trying to be nice, but after you've heard it for the hundredth time, it does get a little irritating
• unwanted parenting advice from childless people (let's talk again once you have a couple)
• flying with kids
• people giving you annoyed looks when your children are having a fit. Really? You think you're having a tough time right now? Just look the other way and be glad you're not the one having to take them home.
• the dog jumping up on me with muddy, wet paws
• the dog barking when the baby is taking a nap 
• the door hitting you in the butt when your transporting an egg in your back pocket

• Christmas shopping because people tend to get a little cray-cray that time of year
• Barney the purple dinosaur
• having to take both kids out of the car, even though you just have to run into the store for, like, two minutes tops
• bothersome calls from people trying to upgrade your services or sell you something new
• people who ask you what exactly it is that you do all day, after you've told them you're a stay-at-home-mom and men with cavemen mentalities, who think their life is so much harder because they have to go to work every day. Pretty sure 90% of you would beg to go back to work after being home with the kids for a couple of weeks. Now, I know there are also stay-at-home dads out there - who are doing an amazing job I'm sure - but those guys would probably never say that being a stay-at-home dad is easier than going to work. All I'm saying is, until you've done both, you don't really know what you're talking about.
• when the milk carton gives me a hard time 

• pop-up ads
• moms complaining about how their baby only sleeps five hours at a time
• paying interest
• stubbing your toe (especially right in the morning, when you're not even fully awake yet)
• finding a piece of clothing you love, but it's not there in your size
• intolerance of any kind 
• racism 
• the 'tear here' lie, when you're either pulling and nothing happens - other than stretching the plastic - or it tears open but you're still not getting to the Ziploc part 

• ordering something at a restaurant, you've been looking forward to all day, just to find out that they're all out of whatever it was you were drooling over. This seems to happen to me every time we eat out, which is not very often
• trying to pay with your debit card and your transaction is declined (awkward)
• when I've had a rough day and Noah just won't fall asleep and keeps coming out of his room
• no clean coffee mugs in the morning
• running out of water halfway through making your coffee

• getting sick or your children getting sick
• canker sores
• TV or book series ending with major cliff hangers and having to wait for months, or even years to find out what's going to happen next.
• two feet of snow in April
• folding laundry and turning around to find Mia standing at the open drawer, pulling out the clothes I've already put away.
• people talking to me when I'm trying to read a book
• ordering a beverage at a coffee shop and realizing I've just paid for a small coffee in a large cup, because 3/4 of the cup was filled with foam
• owning about twenty soothers but not being able to find a single one when I need one
• wet spoon in the sugar bowl
• when I want to take a picture or video of something amazing and the phone dies, just as I'm about to push the button
• And last but not least (I don't know why, but the paper coming out the back is almost worse than an empty roll)

I could go on and on and on, but the point to this post is this. There are times (days, weeks, sometimes even months) when I'm perfectly able to brush all of those things off and take it for what it is. Life. It's not always easy, but some days things are easier to take than others. I consider myself to be a fairly balanced, mostly happy person or, at least, I try to be. I've never been the angry type and I've always tried to make the best out of any situation. But there are definitely days, when the tiniest thing bugs me, I do lose my temper, and I don't like it when it happens. I want to be a good mother to my children, and in order for me to be a good mother, I need to take care of myself and listen to the signs. When I get to the breaking point, everything is irritating, especially the things listed above, and that's when I know that I need to make some time for myself. It's important for you and everyone around you, because the people closest to you are the ones who suffer when you're stressed out and in a foul mood. So listen to the warning signs and make sure you take care of yourself. As parents we tend to always put the needs of our children ahead of our own, and that's what a good parent does. But a good parent also recognizes that even the toughest person needs breaks to recharge their battery, in order to function better again, and there is absolutely no shame in admitting to needing help or time away from the children. I also ask myself if I really want to let a small thing - like stepping in dog poop - ruin my day. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down and try to think of something nice, like the fact that I can put my feet up soon, because there's only two more hours left before the kids go to bed ;-) Or I'll think of something nice that happened that day, and there's usually always something that will remind me that it's all worthwhile. Like these little special moments that make you all teary-eyed, because they're just so adorable, it's almost hard to take.

Try to wake up each morning and be grateful that you and your children are safe and healthy. You'd be surprised what it does to your mindset if you simply start off the day with a positive thought. Let me know what kind of little things drive you crazy and how you handle the stressful times in your life. What do you do to snap out of a bad mood or to recharge your battery? Don't hesitate to comment or send me an email. It's always nice to know you're not the only one struggling. Hope to hear from you soon and don't forget to subscribe, so you won't miss a post.