What’s growing in our garden this year

It seems like everyone’s growing something this year, doesn’t it? I love it! I’ve been comparing garden notes with friends just as often as I’ve been swapping recipes and kiddo activities lately, and it feels springy and hopeful. So, let’s dish the dirt today, friends! :)

Our primary growing spot is our 4×8 garden bed in our backyard, carefully positioned to take advantage of as much sun as possible. John installed it in this spot the month after we moved in, and a few years ago we replaced our original raised bed kit with one from this Etsy shop, which we LOVE – super high quality, lovely details, and easy to install. The boards are really thick and it feels like it will last a long time.

Though we’ve experimented with a bunch of different vegetables over the years, we’ve settled into a consistent rotation that reflects what we like to eat and prioritizes produce that is expensive and/or tastes noticeably better when grown at home. For us, that mostly means tomatoes and herbs.

This year, we’re growing eight tomato plants: three cherry varieties (Sun Gold, Husky Red, and Super Sweet 100) and two medium varieties (Patio and Better Boy). We’ve found we don’t get enough sun for the bigger guys, so we stick to our sweet spot! We’re also growing basil, rosemary, jalapeno, Lacinato kale (for our beloved chickpea pasta), blueberries, and a few different kinds of lettuces.

Elsewhere in our yard, we have jasmine, coneflowers, lantana, scabiosa, heliopsis, Knockout roses, daisies, azaleas, hydrangeas, gardenias, and our beautiful Golden Celebration garden rose, among a few other things.

If we were to have more room some day, I’d love to grow peas, more berries, more tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, and zucchini – as well as many more flowers (zinnias, cosmos, dahlias, peonies, clematis, sunflowers, more roses, lilacs!).

One tip: though we enjoy watering with the kids almost daily, John installed drip lines last year, and it made a HUGE difference in the productivity of our plants, especially with our summer travels. The lines are not that expensive and take a half hour or so to set up. Totally worth it, in our opinion! We bought this kit, which was plenty for our 4×8 bed, and this hose timer.

Now, friends, I’d love to hear: what are you growing this year? Or, if you haven’t had a chance to get plants in the ground yet, what do you dream of growing in the future?

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