Welcome back to my blog! It’s been awhile since my last post and a lot has changed since that last post. In October 2022, Steven and I purchased our first home! We were starting to lose hope that we would ever get ourselves into a house but after I contacted a friend of ours about starting the process, we just took off running. We moved in right after closing and have settled in nicely.
We’ve been in our house now for about 3 months. This little house is our dream house. The minute we saw the ad online, we knew this was the house for us. When our offer was accepted, I couldn’t believe it. Our dreams of owning a home together came true! Our property is on 0.51 acres. Our front yard is quite big and our house sits back on the property some. The backyard is just as big as the front yard and we have a huge shop (Steven’s favorite part of this property). When it came to looking for houses, I knew in my heart that I wanted to live in the country but not too far into the country. I wanted to be able to have some land but not a ton of land. This house was the perfect combination. We’re only 12 minutes from town and we have a bit of land to do stuff with.
I don’t know if it roots back to both of my grandpa’s being really big into having a garden/farming but I have always wanted to be in the country and start a garden. My grandpa Abshier always loved his little garden and would grow everything with ease. I was always amazed at how big his corn grew and how successful he was with keeping vegetable plants alive. I’ve never really been a green thumb but there’s always time to learn new tricks, right? Even my grandpa Farris loved his garden. Him and my grandma used to live on 3/4 of an acre and had walnut trees. He loved peppers and would grow some peppers, tomatoes and corn. He’s who I got my love of pepperoncinis from.
This year, 2023, I plan to start making use of our land to not only benefit us, but to benefit nature as well. I have been reading up on gardening, permaculture and growing our own food. I had originally wanted to have this oasis of a backyard. The green grass, fire pit, nice landscaping etc. But now I want to make the best of the space and have a big vegetable garden and lots of flowers to attract pollinators.
After doing much research and going to Lowe’s multiple times to check pricing on wood, hardware cloth, etc, I decided to start out my gardening adventure with the cheaper option, metal raised garden beds. Due to the fact that we live in an area where the soil is, well, sand, I figured it was best to get a raised bed so I could put proper, nutrient filled soil in it vs trying to figure out how to build up the sandy ground. Though I have heard that some plants love sandy soil such as: blueberries, sunflowers, lemon trees.
I’m really hoping I am successful with gardening and I can make this work because I really want to be more self sufficient. I want to be able to live off the land and provide vegetables and fruits for my family as well as our friends. I’d love to be part of a community that grows food, makes fresh bread, jams, jellies and gives them to friends/family in tough times. I want to be part of a community that cares. Not a community of people who are too entitled, who only care about materialistic items, who want to continue to pay hundreds of dollars at the grocery stores. I want to be part of something bigger. I want to take a step back in time when people used to actually grow their own fruits and veggies and live off the land. Now, with that being said, I’m definitely not the person to be a cattle rancher or have meat birds. I couldn’t do it. Nope, no way. I appreciate those who can do that task but I cannot. I however, think I have the ability to make a garden possible.
Before Spring hits, I will acquire the first of what I hope to be, many raised beds. I’ve researched companion plants for peppers, which is what we want to first start growing, despite my father questioning why we want to grow so many peppers first. 1. Even if we have an over abundance of peppers (which I don’t know that it will happen our first year), we can cut them up and freeze them. 2. I can always give some away to friends/family and 3. I am a huge fan of salsa, so I’m sure once my mother in law moves closer, she’ll be able to teach me how to make and can salsa. So in short, I’m not worried about having an over abundance of peppers. They won’t go to waste.
I plan to buy a bag of 3000+ Zinnia seeds and fill up our two planters by our gate. I found out this morning that two of the plants in front of our porch will bloom in the Spring and those will also help attract pollinators. When it comes time to plant the peppers, I’m going to also plant Marigolds as I’ve read that they are an excellent companion plant. If you don’t know what companion plants are, they’re plants that will help benefit the other plants. For example, attract pests to them vs the vegetables, attract pollinators so the vegetables get pollinated and can grow and some help shade the other plants from getting too much sun. I found a lot of helpful information on https://www.almanac.com/planning-companion-planting-garden. Not only do they have a ton of information on companion planting, they have information on growing flowers, gardening with raised beds and information on when to start planting.
As you can tell from the photo above, this is only a portion of our front yard. Look at the amount of space I have to grow even more lovely things! We do have some trees at the front of the property that I’ll be interested in seeing how they look in the Spring time. If they do not attract pollinators, then we will likely remove them and possibly put in some crape mrytles. I do have a lot of plans for this space up front. Ideally I would love to have a small flower farm. I’ve always loved the idea of having fresh cut flowers in my house. However, I will only be able to have flowers indoors if they’re non-toxic to cats/dogs because their well-being and health is more important to me than having flowers inside. Good thing about Zinnias is they are non-toxic and are easy to grow. I would like to use some of this place for some blueberry bushes, but I’m worried I will have random critters enjoying them more than me vs if I put them in the backyard behind the fence. We have time to think about the best plan for the front area. For now we will focus on the backyard.
There is quite a bit of space for a garden I’d say! The current plan is to start the raised beds off to the right side, along the fence, spaced out some. Ideally I think I could fit maybe 8 or more raised beds from the porch toward the beginning of the shop. I’d like to have our fire pit go somewhere off to the left side but that is to be decided later on. We have a couple of random trees in the backyard that I will need to see what they look like come Spring to decide if they stay or not. One off to the left has little berries on it and I have not determined yet if those berries are poisonous to dogs. It the tree does not serve a purpose, it must go and something that will serve a purpose will take it’s place.
Here’s a list of all of the possible fruit/veggies/flowers I want to grow:
- Zinnias
- Nasturtiums
- Lupines
- Marigolds
- Peonies
- Dahlia
- Peppers
- Zucchini
- Broccoli
- Tomatoes
- Brussel Sprouts
- Corn
- Carrots
- Pumpkins
- Lemons
- Apples
- Blueberries
- Thornless Blackberries
- Thornless Roses
- Basil as a companion plant to Tomatoes
- Cilantro for salsa and as a companion plant to Tomatoes
It’s quite the list I will say. But I have big plans. This will obviously take more than a few years to start as I want to start with one bed for vegetables and start growing more flowers. I’m definitely not jumping into doing a ton of raised beds and plants till I know I can keep everything healthy and alive.
I cannot wait to start this journey with y’all. I plan to revive my blog and be able to share my progress, failures and success here. So if you’d like to follow along while I turn our land into something better than just Bermuda grass and pine trees, give me a follow and comment below!
Xoxo Katie
The Ramblings of Kaytee 
So much potential! Looking forward to seeing what you do with your new garden 🙂
Thanks!! I’m excited!!