Garden Year 1-Week 1

While Sammit and I are in the process of moving into our new home, a 4 bedroom house owned by Sammit's brother in a Detroit suburb, nearly 3 months ago I started a garden next to the driveway. At the time, I knew we wouldn't be moving in until August or so, but after trying to grow produce and herbs in my apartment throughout college I could not stomach the idea of letting one more summer pass without an outdoor garden of my own. A few weeks after Mother's Day, when I was sure the soil was thawed and there would be no more frosting, I went to work on a a plot next to the house on the other side of the driveway. The plot had been a rose garden when the previous owners lived here, but there was only one rose bush and a plethora of weeds left. Sammit escorted me to Lowe's and Home Depot and we collected a shovel (for $5!!), some compost and topsoil, and a few red stones to make paths.


For about $50 and a lot of sweat over the course of two days, we I weeded and turned the garden by hand. Now, I must admit that I am proud of turning the garden by hand. When people see the size of our plot (5'x25') they are impressed by my work. I wish I could chalk it up to some manual-labor-loving-extreme-survivalist attitude, but really we just didn't have realize we had another option. It wasn't until the bed was complete that Sammit's brother, who was not impressed at the hand turned 100 square feet, told us he had an electric rototiller. I have the rest of the seasons to decide if I'd like to use it next year. While it would be faster, I really did love getting sweaty in the dirt.


Being geeks, we measured and used an excel spreadsheet to plot out our garden, taking into consideration the spacing needs of each plant we intended to harvest. While I will do this again next year, my eyes were bigger than my dirt patches when I went to the farmer's market for flats and we ended up throwing the spacing out and planted whatever the hell we wanted. We divided the plot up into 6 beds separated by a line of red bricks to form a walkway around each of them.  I alternated topsoil and composte and fit as many plants as I could.

Week 1

Bed One: Tomatoes (Cherry, Sungolds, Beefsteaks) & Fruit (Watermelon in back)

Bed Two: Fruit (Cantaloupe in back) & Tomatoes (San Marzanos) & Peppers (Bananas, Seranos, Habeneros, Jalapenos)

Bed One: Unknown Lettuce, Unknown Lettuce from Seed, Brussell's Sprouts, Cucumbers, Dill at the base of the path.
Bed Two: Cauliflower, Broccoli, Green Beans, Spearmint at the base of the path

Carrots (4 rows), Summer Squash, Zucchini, Chives at the base of the path

Herb Garden: Rose Bush, Rosemary, Sage, Oregano, Parsley, Cilantro, Thyme, Basil