I garden to save money on groceries and connect with my neighbors. I didn't have any experience, but have learned a lot on my way to success.
I wanted to start a garden in my backyard to help offset the rising price of groceries.
I didn't have any experience, but a friend told me to "throw it in the ground and see what happens."
Three years in, I'm now expanding my garden and growing enough to share with my neighbors.
I spent years thinking I didn't have a green thumb because I regularly killed houseplants. All that changed three years ago when my family of three bought our first home in Decatur, Georgia. Suddenly, I had a yard to maintain and space for a garden, but no idea how to do any of it.
My curiosity for gardening and landscaping grew gradually. I thought about trying to grow food for the first time in my life but felt overwhelmed with everything I needed to learn, not to mention my poor track record with houseplants which added to my feelings of inadequacy. But with the price of produce ever-increasing at the grocery store, I figured even if I could grow a few vegetables, it could help offset my family's expenses.
Just do it
A friend helped me put my early worries about gardening to bed. "Just throw it in the ground and see what happens," she told me. She helped me realize that starting a garden was not about growing plants perfectly, but learning through trial and error. I embraced her outlook and built my first raised garden bed from wood planks and a handful of screws in the spring of 2022.
To help me get started, I took an hour-long spring gardening class at the Wylde Center, a non-profit nature and education center in Atlanta. The instructor taught us how to make miniature greenhouses for seeds by cutting a few holes into empty milk jugs and the importance of using a good soil that provides organic nutrients for seedlings to help them start strong.
We planted basil, tomatillo, and eggplant seeds in class. Using the same method, I started tomatoes, corn, and lettuce at home. I placed all of them on my front porch so they would get plenty of sun and rain. Once the seedlings outgrew the milk jugs, I transplanted the strongest ones into my garden bed. It was exhilarating to watch everything grow with nature doing most of the work.
Trial and error
I made a lot of mistakes the first year. I didn't know I needed to prune tomatoes to encourage them to grow fruit rather than grow into bushy plants almost as tall as me. Because of this, the tomatoes were scarce and small. At the end of the growing season, I searched for answers online and watched a couple of videos to learn how to identify which stems to remove from the tomato plant. I also learned that I waited too long to harvest the lettuce and it bolted and tasted bitter. The eggplants and tomatillos were easy to grow and didn't need much intervention from me, but my family doesn't regularly eat either, so I realized how important it is to prioritize produce most loved by your family.
By the following spring, I'd learned from my early mistakes and had grown more confident. I was eager to make a bigger and better garden. I opted for two store-bought raised beds, placing them in my front yard, which gets more sunlight than my backyard, where I planted the year before. This time, I planted fruits and vegetables that my family loves — okra, Roma tomatoes, and habanero peppers, plus a few flowers to attract pollinators. I also started planting fruit trees and bushes— blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, plus two pear trees and a fig tree. Walking through the yard to pick berries with my son felt gratifying and I beamed with pride when I shared okra and tomatoes with some of my neighbors.
My skills — and garden — keep growing
This year, I'm planning to go all out. I'm doubling my raised garden beds, going from two to four, and I'm creating a small flower garden, which I plan to fill with echinacea, anise hyssop, and feverfew. I feel confident enough to start more plants from seed and am cold stratifying some seeds in my refrigerator for the first time. I'm adding more fruit bushes to my yard, and once they've matured, I hope my yard will be a food forest that will not only supply produce for my family, but provide for my neighbors as well.
What started as a practical idea to offset grocery prices has turned into a full-fledged hobby. Who knows? Maybe I'll even keep a couple of houseplants alive now, too.
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