I will start by saying, I am not an expert gardener. I started my first small box garden in 2021. I was living in a suburban neighborhood and had a very small yard, but wanted to give gardening a go so I could have fresh veggies. Basically I discovered that I am really good at growing green beans and peppers, but nothing else. I did the box garden for 2 seasons until we moved to the country. We now have 4 acres of land and I have a pretty nice garden setup.

If you know me, you know that I like to do things on a whim. I like to do research, but sometimes, I just go for it. That is exactly what I did in 2023. One morning I woke up and said, "I want to do a garden today." My husband, being the amazing man he is, was hesitant, but on board.

I went outside with my shovel and literally HAND DUG my garden. Not the smartest idea, but hey, it was a good workout. Once I was near death, I convinced my husband to take me to Lowes to get a tiller. No only did I not know how to use a tiller, but I didn't even know what they looked like. Well, we bought a tiller and I went home and tilled over my hand dug garden. Which made it just a tad deeper.

I already had a greenhouse so I started most of my plants in there, then I transferred them to the main garden. Now, because I did not know what I was doing and did not prep like I should have, my garden didn't flourish. I got a few veggies, but it was not worth all the work.

Fast forward to 2024. My dad, uncle, and neighbor had bigger and better plans for me. They brought over their tractor and plowed up a space for me to use.

Once the space was plowed and ready to go, we planted everything. We planted: beans, corn, bell peppers, hot peppers, banana peppers, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, radishes, and onions. Now that is a lot of veggies for someone who doesn't know what they are doing, but this is how we learn.

We hoed our rows and laid down organic fertilizer and cow manure and then we planted our seeds according to the plant type. That's right, seed. I started mostly everything from seed.

At this point, we were having a very warm Spring and it was turning into a HOT summer. We were in a really bad drought so I was dragging out a hose daily to water the garden to keep the ground wet. It was a total job. My dad and I ended up installing a sprinkler system on a timer which saved me and my garden.

Around July, my tomatoes started coming in. Once they started to turn red, I noticed the bottoms of them all were rotting. After further research, it looked like either it was due to overwatering or calcium deficiency. I then started to tone down the watering to every other day or even every 2 days. I've heard several other "gardeners" this year having the bottom rot in their tomatoes. If you've experienced this, comment to let me know.

Overall, my main pitfalls were the rotting of my radishes and tomatoes. Even then, I got a pretty good harvest.

I'm super happy with my harvest this year and I've created lots of great meals with these veggies that I will include in my recipe e-book. My goals next year are to get it plowed deeper and start seeds in my greenhouse early to transfer over to the ground.

I hope next year I can be more successful with tomatoes in particular so I can make pasta sauce, salsa, and even ketchup.