Planting the garden!

For once, I finally got my garden in on time!

Last weekend we rented a tiller and got to work. In Northern Indiana, you're supposed to wait until Mother's Day to plant any type of vegetable garden or flowers. Mother's Day is supposedly the last time it will frost here, although, back in the 1960's it did frost at the very end of May. Let's hope that never happens again! 

Normally, I don't seem to be able to get my garden in until June or even July, so I am super psyched that I can look forward to a long and hopefully, productive growing season.

Last year, my vegetable garden did not do well at all. For starters, I tried to save money and hand tilled it. Big mistake! It took forever and was so difficult. My soil is full of clay so it was almost impossible to do it by hand and do a good job. I even got a Ganglion cyst on my hand from it! 

As a result, the garden ended up being about half the size as normal, which meant my veggies were super crowded. It also got really weedy and I was unable to weed it properly since it was so crowded. My pickles barely grew and even my sunflowers didn't really do that well. We almost decided not to even put in a garden this year, but...I just had to!

I've actually had my "vegetable" garden planned out since January! The second those seed packets start showing up in the stores my mind starts churning! As of right now, I am only doing a few things. Most everything I'm doing is very viney, so it will have a lot of room to spread out!  

I love pumpkins and I found some cute mini harvest pumpkin seeds so I had to plant those. I seem to have better luck with the mini pumpkins as opposed to the jack-o-lantern size. My husband wanted to give honey dew and cantaloupe a try too, and of course, I had to plant some sunflowers! 

You never know though, I still may add to it if I find just the right thing!

This was the garden before we started. You can't even tell where it was last year! It gets taken over by grass and weeds so quickly!

This tiller made quick work for my husband! I had planned on being the one that did the tilling, but it was so heavy and impossible for me to handle. So, ladies, you may need to get some help tilling your garden if you're a wimp like me!

After tilling the garden with the tiller, I went over it with a garden rake to get anything that was missed. Anything that looked like it had a root structure got ripped out! I'm not going to use any chemical weed preventer this year due to the fact that I noticed the one I had used previously states that it causes cancer. Uh, no thank you! I'm going to be researching some alternatives! I know it looks super shady right now, but this garden actually gets full sun in the afternoon.

This stuff is the bane of my existence. I have no idea what it is, but if anyone out there does or knows how to eradicate it, let me know! It's all over my yard and it's always trying to take over my gardens.

All ready for planting! I'm going to wait until I see sprouts to put up my fence.

I'm really hoping these work out this year ~ especially my pumpkins! It's so gratifying to grow your own garden! Give it a try!