Setting Up Your Garden
Things I've learned setting up my garden as a beginner vegetable gardener
After two failed attempts, I’m on my way to being a successful vegetable gardener.
In 2016, when I moved from Toronto to Ottawa, and from a condo to a house I asked my boyfriend (now husband) to build me a vegetable garden. The first raised bed garden he made me had short posts with chicken wire wrapped around them and a door that I had to lift out of its tracks to get in. Unfortunately, the walls and door were not high enough and our dogs jumped in and dug everything up the first time I planted seedlings. I never ended up re-planting so that was a complete fail.
The year, after we ended up taking apart the garden and putting in a beautiful backyard patio in its place, so we could host our rehearsal dinner at our house before our wedding. So no new garden attempts were made in 2017, 2018 or 2019.
After moving to Vancouver Island in 2020 and giving birth to boy/girl twins later that summer there were definitely no gardening plans made that year. We then moved back to Ottawa in 2021, and I didn’t try and revive my yearning to become a vegetable gardener until the summer of 2022.
I asked my husband to once again build me a vegetable garden but this time with higher walls, a roof of chicken wire and big swinging doors. This time he had the help of our babes to make these monstrosities.
Unfortunately, we built them off to the side so that we could enjoy the full length of our backyard but they didn’t get enough sun during the day so our veggies struggled. Oh and we used plastic chicken wire which was easily eaten by rodents hankering to feast on our vegetables.
The cucumber and zucchini plants barely got bigger than what you see in the photos below… I think I only end up harvesting around 5-6 zucchinis in total.
I didn’t know enough about growing cabbage and all my plants got eaten by slugs.
This year my husband moved the gardens over to full sun, I hauled the dirt over, added compost and chicken manure and then planted seedlings I started myself or bought from Ottawa Farm Fresh.
I planted Cucumber & Beets in the top left rectangular garden. Peas & Carrots in the top right. Onions & Leeks in the bottom left and Cabbage & Cauliflower bottom right. And then Zucchini & 1 Delicata Squash plant in the square garden.
How It Started:
Onions/Leeks on the bottom and Cucumber at the top….
How It’s Going:
Cabbage, Cauliflower, Peas & Carrots all planted from seed into the garden.
How It Started:
Zucchini and 1 Delicata Squash went into the main garden.
How It’s Going:
The plant on the left is my 1 Delicata Squash plant that seems to be doing quite well :)
I’m really happy with how everything is going and I’ll try and give you a full update during harvest season later this year!