Have you ever tried growing your own food? Have you ever tried growing anything, period? Well, my friends, I hadn’t made a serious attempt at an actual garden in my life until this year. And, well, regardless of whether your endeavor ends in success or failure, you learn some pretty good lessons. I thought I’d share the story of my first, little garden, its highs and its lows, and tell you about the lessons I’ll take into next year.

The Plants Chosen

So, to start, what the heck did I even try growing? You see, my husband and I toodled around the garden section at Lowe’s and picked out some rather random seeds. We had done a bit of reading into what might work best based on the region we live in, but we mostly just wanted to wing it. We picked foods that we truly wanted to eat. We bought spinach, bell pepper, banana pepper, rosemary, onion, garlic, and potatoes. We also bought some flower seeds, yet we ultimately missed the window of time in which those should have been planted. I’ll come back to that later. And we bought a seed starter tray, soil, pots, and other items we’d need.

The Honeymoon Phase

The onions and garlic went straight outdoors to a corner of one of the raised beds we have in our backyard. I groomed that thing like crazy to rip up elm tree roots, dig up rocks, and put down some soil.

Everything else began life indoors in that seed starter tray. Initially, we had the most success with the spinach and the least success with the rosemary. However, as time went on, we moved our tiny seedlings into various-sized pots, and that’s when things really took off.

And all was well! Then it was time to transplant the peppers outside…

The Birds, Bugs, and Cats, Oh My!

The thing about the pepper plants — that our friend had to tell us about because we somehow never came across this information ourselves — was that they needed to be pollinated in order to flower and produce any peppers. This, obviously, couldn’t be achieved inside. So with nervous trepidation, but steadfast thoroughness, I planted the peppers as best as I could.

Now you may say to yourselves, “I see the onions flourishing! But where is the garlic? And what about those potatoes?”

So there are magpies that frequent our backyard due to our huge elm tree. I had seen a few of them hopping across our grass and around the raised bed, which was super cute. Yet on the day I went to plant the peppers, I was dismayed that there was no sign of the garlic. Sure enough, I pushed a bit of the soil away and found that not even a clove remained; there was no trace that garlic had ever been planted there. I can only assume that the onion was buried deep enough and rooted well enough that the magpies didn’t bother with it. We hadn’t planted the potatoes yet because we wanted to prioritize the peppers and have enough room for them to grow. Suddenly, although regrettably, some space had opened up.

Out went the garlic and in went the potatoes, buried deep enough so that the magpies wouldn’t be interested in those either. I haven’t seen a magpie near the raised bed since.

I waited anxiously for the pepper plants to show any signs of flowering, the tiniest bulb, the newest leaf sprout. I’m still waiting. They’re still out there in the bed, and I’m still watering them. But they’re under assault from a mystery bug. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re going to make it.

Just to add insult to injury, a black cat that likes to pass through our backyard took the liberty of peeing in the garden before scurrying through a hole in our fence. So there’s that as well.

The Lessons Learned

As you can imagine, there are many takeaways from all of this. I figure I’ll explain plant by plant what went wrong (or right!) and see what I can do going forward.

Spinach – The spinach was arguably our most successful plant. It’s just that we didn’t grow nearly enough of it! It seems like we did, yet if we want to have only homegrown spinach in our salads, we’re going to have to grow quite a lot more. Maybe putting the spinach outside would’ve been a better approach. At best, we had enough leaves to add to store-bought greens, though that certainly isn’t a bad thing.

Banana and bell peppers – The peppers started out with such promise and were cut down in their prime, so they’re probably the most disappointing plant. I think we got off on the right foot indoors, but we failed them upon transplanting them outdoors. If we protect them better — warding off bugs, shielding them from outside threats, and fixing our fences — maybe they’d stand more of a chance. And we’ll have to build a much more pollinator-friendly garden! You remember those flower seeds I mentioned? I intend on actually planting those on time next year so that they could perhaps aid any future pepper plants in flowering and producing. Oh, by the way, an ongoing mega-drought doesn’t help…

Rosemary – The rosemary is absolutely our most promising plant. While only one of them made it out of the seed starter tray, it continues to grow! Given that it’s our last remaining indoor plant, we can solely tend to it, and maybe it’ll give us one good sprig to use in some tasty recipe. Much like the spinach, we’ll just have to plant more of it next time!

Garlic – The garlic was a total failure, but not from anything we did… rather from what we didn’t do. A lot like the peppers, we’d have to protect it better from thieving birds.

Onion and Potato- The onion and potatoes are the most resilient plants thus far. They’re pretty resistant to the dry and hot conditions, they’re planted far enough down in the ground to be safe, and they have plenty of time to go and growing to do before we harvest them. It’s safe to say that they’ve proven to be the most beginner-friendly plants as well! We’ll just have to see how they fare!

The Blessings Counted

Hey, for many years, I couldn’t even dream of growing my own garden. So I’d say this was, overall, a successful first try! Or I didn’t have much desire to because we were always renting the places we lived at. Now that we’ve finally bought a house, I can really give gardening an honest go.

Also, we’ve received so many surprises from plants we weren’t even responsible for, ones that were put in by the previous homeowners! It was hard to say what would die off completely and what would return eventually, at first. Yet I will happily steward whatever happens to come along in the future! Let me show you how lucky we are with these beauties:

Anyway, it’s been fun recounting all of this! And I’m so proud of what’s been achieved. Hopefully I’ll have a My Second Garden post coming your way next year. 🙂