I Don't Know Anything: The Beginner Beginner's Journey

I'm not even sure that you can describe me as a beginner gardner, I mean I knew absolutley nothing before I started my home garden and I really didn't even know I wanted to start a garden. Know I can't imagine not having a garden. I can't imagine that last fall I didn't get started properly on my garden, that I didn't seed more of a variety of plants, or start a compost six months ago.

So, even though a lot of things in my garden I did ass backwards, it hasn't been doing too bad...here is the story...


My boyfriend Nick and I live in Chapel Hill NC (Go Heels!) which is also the Carolina epicenter of local food, local farms, and farmers markets (there are three within 20 miles of our house). My little brother and I went to the Carrboro Farmers Market and I found a beautiful tomato plant and a 4 pack of basil for just $5! Nick and I went to Whole Foods to get herbs for the summer since we were sick of buying them at the grocery in their inordinate amounts that we can never seem to use before they go bad. We're both chefs, so fresh herbs really blows our skirt up-so to speak. All of a sudden I had all these plants and the next day I was a the local garden center off Franklin St. and found some really great seeds.

I began the seeding process, I tried germinating both already in soil and also in a warm damp paper towel that i left over the fridge. I successfully germinated and actually have plants for tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, peppers, collards, and these great butterfly attracting wildflowers. I am absolutely obsessed with peppers, I love every single kind of pepper that has ever been found from the hottest habanero to the sweetest bell pepper, juggling the heat to sweet of peppers is an art primarily contained within our southern neighbors but I always love a challenge. All my other plants were still potted, eagerly awaiting the ground...
The Land I had to Clear
I had to figure out somewhere to put everything, considering I didn't till up the land much less clear it away earlier in the year I began the arduous task of 'clearin the land.' We live in a house that has a lot of trees around it so finding part of the land that got the most sunlight took a while, I really had to keep an eye on the yard. Finally I got my plot, got my organic soil, got my manure, and I was ready.




This is my garden as of April 24, kinda sad...

It's Tomato Time!!!

Tomato Plant on 4/24

This is the tomato plant about two weeks after getting it from the Farmers Market. When I bought it the lady told me to plant it deep and I found out that the hole that you dig should literally be dug 4 inches deeper than the whole base of the plant, so that about 4 inches of stem where underground too. Trim the bottom most smallest leaves.

After a week or too I questioned whether or not to prune it more and found this really great diagram illustrating which stems should be trimmed and which shouldn't. Pruning can reduce harmful pathogens that can turn your plant leaves yellow. It also promotes strong vertical growth, basically: It get big...


The next step with the plant was just to cage it. I bought this really cheap cage at Lowe's hardware along with a cayenne pepper plant, a banana pepper plant, and some flowers.

This is my tomato plant a week later (4/29) and I've already had to change out the old cage for a bigger one--it got so much bigger than I expected!

I'll add more pictures and tales of my trials and tribulations with my tomato plant!