Gardening: The hardest part is getting started {Part 1}

Guest post by Mavis from OneHundredDollarsAMonth.com.

This is my neighbor’s garden. It’s a masterpiece.  A real beauty.

So when my neighbor called the other day and asked if I would help her with her garden, I laughed. “Define help” I asked.  “Look, I’m really busy.  I will give you anything you want if you just come over and weed and plant the whole thing for me… anything!” she pleaded.

“Would you give me a case of toilet paper and a 25lb bag of sugar?” I asked.

“Are you serious?”

“Are you?”

“Fine. Yes, I will go to Costco and get you toilet paper and sugar you weirdo, now how soon can you get started?”

“I’ll be over tomorrow.”

Wahooo!  I love bartering, don’t you?

The next day, I headed over to my neighbors garden. As Lulu (my neighbor’s daughter) and I were weeding the garden beds, I asked her what she would like to grow.

“Potatoes, lots and lots of potatoes” she said.

So with pint sized tools in hand, we began to dig.  When it finally came to plant the potatoes, I asked how she wanted to plant the potatoes.  Having planted a potato tower in my own garden this year I thought maybe she would like to try it.

But she shot me down, like only an 8 year old can.  She was worried her dog would tip over any sort of potato tower, and insisted we planted potatoes the traditional way. 8″ deep, 8″ apart in rows, 18″ across.  Lulu’s mother may not have any interest in planting a garden, but little Lulu sure does.

Next, we decided to plant a few red onion bulbs (for potato salad of course). If you have never planted onions before, you should give them a try. Onions are incredibly easy to grow when started from bulbs and sprout quickly as well. We planted the onion sets 4 inches apart, in rows about 1 foot apart, and then covered the bulbs with about 1″ of dirt.  The whole process took about 5 minutes.

After the potatoes and onions had been planted, we sat on the back porch and drank a Capri Sun, gave each other a high five, and made a date for next week to plant beans and carrots.

Gardening does not have to be difficult. It should be fun. Start small, plant one garden box at a time so you don’t feel overwhelmed, and don’t beat yourself up if everything does not go {or grow} as planned.

You know what they say… The more you garden, the more you grow! But get a mooooove on.  Daylight is burning. 😉

Mavis is a Northwest gardener on a mission to grow 2,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables in her suburban backyard this summer. You can follow her gardening journey on her blog OneHundredDollarsAMonth.com.

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