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I have always dreamed of having my own garden. The idea of growing your own food and lovingly harvesting what the earth has to offer is so appealing, almost spiritual to me! After we had our daughter this desire only got stronger. I wanted her to know where her food comes from. To know what it takes to grow it and instill in her a love of working in the dirt with her hands. We never had the space until we moved into our current home in the winter of 2019.

I knew just where it would go too! The side of the house had a decent sized section of gravel cluttered with debris left behind by the previous owners. It was the easiest section of the yard to block off from the dogs and it was not a usable space for play for our daughter. Perfect!

I wish I had thought to get a true “Before” picture when it was still a mess of junk but oh well…

We hauled away the junk and repurposed the gravel to around the pond and water feature in the main section of the back yard. The we laid down straw which helps prevent weeds and reduces moisture loss in the soil. Now we were ready to really get to work!

Building this garden was truly a family affair! Though to be honest my husband did most of the hard work… Some friends of our were moving and gave us the wood and soil from their dismantled garden. We also see things like that being given away all the time on local Facebook groups. We decided to build two separate garden beds.

Once we finished the second garden bed we had a little wood left over so we added a third section coming off of the second. We didn’t intend for it to look like a ship but we kinda liked it any way!

We created five potato towers out of wire sheets, used a metal wash tub as an additional raised garden bed and created a small little section for strawberries at the entrance of the garden. Now all we had to do was plant!

We planted sweet peppers, hot peppers, sweet peas, and cherry tomatoes in the first garden box. Snap beans, full size tomatoes, romaine lettuce, and and butter lettuce in the second planter box. Radishes in the triangle section and I brought in a few pots of herbs latter on. We planted five towers of potatoes, and five strawberry plants. In the tub we planted cucumbers, squash and collard greens though we ended up having to move the cucumbers to it’s own tub when we realized it was too crowded in there.

We needed a storage solution for our gardening supplies so my husband repurposed an old cabinet that was tucked away in an old falling down tree house on the back of our property. He added some legs and a new coat of paint and magically we had this beautiful piece!

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Along the way we harvested as things when ready and really enjoyed incorporating it into our meals! Our daughter loves working in the garden! She is a nature girl through and through! Barefoot and dirty 99% of the time!

Toddlers are notorious picky eaters and ours is no different… But if it comes from our garden and she gets to help pick it, she will eat it! No questions asked!