A New Hobby: Gardening

Alright, I live in the Phoenix metro area of Arizona, USA. In the summers it can get to about 125 degree F and winters can be a bit nippy. Today is 3-22-20. It was about 67 outside today and partly cloudy. This weeks forecast goes from 62 tomorrow all the way to 87 next Thursday. That gives you an idea of what our general weather is for now.

With all this COVID-19 stuff going on, mix that with my kids loving watermelon and strawberries, I said why not grow some! I told my husband and he went to the hardware store and got supplies. Came back showed me an idea and begun to build it. He then decided he didn’t like that and tried a different approach. Since it was not really “building” anything, it was easy to swap and try different ideas. He bought these bricks that are like puzzle pieces where all sides go inward. Which meant, all he had to do was place the bricks apart from each other and stick a board into the slot. Very simple!

So Steven went to Home Depot and bought the supplies - 18 slotted bricks, some 1.5 inch thick planks, some rebar, and raised bed potting soil. He made it in a “U” shape measuring from the outside about 100 inches long as about 65 inches wide. There was about 40 inches in between the two sides that come outward. It gives me enough space for trying to grow different types of veggies and fruits.

Once Steven finished getting the soil in and it all watered down, I got the starts set in the places where I was going to plant them. Both Logan and Rosella helped with getting them all planted. We got three types of starts for peppers, a tomato plant, two cilantro, a basil and 6 strawberry plants! For seeds, we got lettuce, carrots, radishes, pumpkins, cantaloupe, watermelon and a fourth type of pepper.

The kids and I planted the watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins and the pepper in little egg cartons to get them to sprout before we planted them in the garden. I planted the carrots, lettuce and radishes into the garden the following night.








Update!!!

3-29-20: The jalapeño plants have grown larger and there is a flower on one either quite a few buds on them all! Three sprouts for the radishes have sprung and I’m super excited about that! We had a lady bug visit the other day and I picked up a second tomato plant as the one I planted looks like it isn’t doing so well. It has brown spots on the leaves.