Obedience Garden

That's the name my mom so perfectly named our little garden we started this year. I've been wanting to have a garden really ever since we moved here but our house is situated on our lot so that the sun hits our backyard weird and is mostly shaded in the flowerbed areas. So we resorted to using our side front yard. I know, sounds totally white trash right? But it is somewhat hidden by the pillars of our portacashere. So I asked my parents who created their own garden when I was in high school, to come help us get started.

Dan and Cole were on their way back that morning from the Fathers and Sons camp overnight...which looked fun when we skyped each other before going to bed. Shannon and the girls spent the night and Shannon and I sewed until the wee hours of the morning. Little did we know that as we were going to bed, Dan was waking up to Cole puking in the tent....and even better, Andrew woke up and put his hand right in it. They spent the next 45 minutes cleaning it all up with paper towels . EEW! OF course Dan pointed out that the lantern he got from Costco...the one I was going to take back after convincing him is was an unneeded purchase, came in quite handy during the clean up. So Cole was quarantined inside when he got home.

Meanwhile, we started by mixing in tons of soil amendment everywhere like 6 inches deep. The soil is very clay based here so it was a must to a successful garden (and it's the key to why my parents' grass has looked amazing for 20+years while all their neighbors have replanted their grass over and over. They tilled it all and took out all the rocks before planting their sod.)
So the kids had fun digging around in the dirt with us...except for Cole whose flu landed right on the weekend we FINALLY get my parents to come up for their first over-nighter (seems silly when they live only 30 minutes away but we were getting jealous of my sister in Utah getting all these sleep-overs from Grandma and Grandpa that we wanted one!)

Mom came with me to Home Depot and we got small plants of Cucumber, Zucchini, bell peppers, watermelon, strawberries, and some tomato plants. Oh, and my parents brought two tomato plants from their garden to transplant into ours. We then bought seeds for growing beans, corn, and radishes (which we don't eat- we just thought it would be a rewarding thing to grow since they don't take long. ) I know, when stalks of corn start growing in my front yard...it's gonna be crazy? Crazy but fun!

So here's where the name comes in. Our Prophets for years have counseled us to have a garden. Being self-sufficient is the motivation, and of course, we can't grow everything we would need to live off of, but this was my attempt at following our Prophet! I assumed that since I have no green thumb, I would plant this stuff and maybe the zucchini would make it because zucchini pretty much grows no matter who's taking care of it. I'm not expecting much so hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised!