There are a lot of benefits to running your own garden. We’ll explore some of the benefits and challenges I have faced and maybe this will spur you one to try your hand at starting and maintaining a garden.

If you like video games like me you like to meet an objective, challenge, and ultimately win. Gardening can give you similar results. Have you ever played a puzzle solving game that had a challenge it took you time to overcome? The same can happen to your garden. Pesky rodents can get in there and wreak havoc on your garden making you want to quit or get revenge. In a free will society how you deal with them is up to you. I advocate catch and resell the ones you can lol! Your an recoup what you invest in preventing them from eating your stuff.

Managing a garden is really cool.

What’s in my garden

It all started when me and my wife were at Home Depot once and saw their strawberry plants and though it would be a cool idea to try and plant them and see if they would grow. My wife admitted to not being the best at keeping plants alive and I was up for the challenge to be the master gardener. We got the strawberry plant and two years later its doing pretty good I’d say. My green thumb ambitions grew after I planted the strawberry plant and I thought hmmm, I like cucumbers, tomatoes and my wife threw in her lot with rosemary and cilantro.

This year as you can see below I am planting sweet corn, I got a little adventurous and planted cantaloupe, watermelon, and bell peppers. In the future I think it would be so cool to plant grapes. I live in the south east of the United States where the climate is warm and grapes can grow. I’ll keep you posted on if I give it a go. 

Enter YouTube University

Ok so like many of you when I do something I want to do it well and make it work. There is so much information on the internet both video and text that starting and successfully running a garden shouldn’t be too hard of a task for you. Over the past year or so I have looked at how to videos and can say they have helped a lot. YouTube has a lot of helpful people who share their experiences on gardening and they can help you if there is something you’re looking at growing. 

I read an article on Bonnie that showed me I need to water the tomatoes more than I am now because of the roots. That has spurred me to water them more. Did you hear how the tariffs could cause tomatoes prices to go up? Might be a reason to grow your own tomatoes.

What your garden will consist of

If you want flowers cool, if you want something you can eat cool. We have calla lilies next to the garden and they’re pretty cool.

Pests

I like little creatures when they aren’t in my space and eating what I put my time into taking care of. Once they’ve violated my decree of thou shalt not eat stedocli’s fruits and veggies I have to take measures to protect fort. I have dealt with creatures ranging from slugs, lizards, chipmunks, and squirrels. As a result I have had to nearly fortify my garden spaces with chicken wire and bird mesh to keep them away.

Ultimately I see if they want something they will make the ultimate sacrifice to get it and as a result I am getting a non lethal trap, at least to trap the bigger rodents like chipmunks and squirrels. The idea came across my mind to sell what I catch and I think I will to make up for the investment we have put out ot create a fortified garden space and purchase bird mesh. Want to buy a chipmunk as a pet? : )

Something really cool and relaxing about it.

Taking care of living things in a garden is really cool. Take care of them and they will yield something nice to eat or something cool to look at. When I take care of the garden it teaches me patience. I can’t make the fruit grow instantly and it gives me a greater appreciation for the farmers who grow and God who causes things to grow. Its a partnership between God and man in principal because we can sow and water but we have not control over if and when something grows.

Its cool coming out each day watching the progress of something you’re nurturing and providing overwatch for. One of my goals is to grow plenty so I can bring some over to the neighbors or even a fortunate reader, what you think?

I will keep you posted and in the mean time here are some pictures below to show you what I am talking about. Thanks for your support and checking out the post.

The journey continues…

SteDoCli