Creating a Home,  Lifestyle

Building Your Dream Garden

July 17, 2018 / 42 Comments

I have always dreamed of owning a house with an area for a nice garden. I’m not only talking about flowers but herbs and vegetables too! I love the idea of being able to grow some of my own food. The other part of my dream is to teach my kids all about gardening by having them help.

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Now that I have the house, it’s time to work to make my dream garden a reality. Since I have never cared for a garden myself, I have a lot to learn. However, before I could even start the learning process, I had to get the existing garden under control.

The garden I inherited from the house’s previous owner was very overgrown. Certain plants had taken over and there were weeds everywhere. My first step was to pull out the weeds and prune back all the trees and plants that were growing out of control. I started by getting a good pair of gardening gloves to protect my hands as I pulled out as much as I could. Then I needed some pruning shears to cut everything back. It took me a while, but I started to uncover the garden’s borders and even a cute little bench!

Another thing that was important to get done quickly was pest control. I live in the woods. That means there are lots of gnats flying around and ticks jumping off the deer that frequent the area. Having a dog and young kids, I’m very nervous about using too many chemicals on my yard. However, I also live in an area with a high occurrence of Lyme disease, so I need to protect them from ticks. So I found a couple of natural solutions.

The first is to surround the yard with either rock or mulch. The point is to have a dry barrier between the woods and the yard. This doesn’t do anything for the pesky, flying gnats, but it will help with ticks. Ticks like a moist ground, not dry areas like mulch and rock. Therefore, having a dry barrier discourages them from coming into your yard. This in combination with keeping the grass short in the yard, provides an unfavorable habitat for ticks and greatly reduces your risk.

To help with other pests, as well as more help with ticks, I found something called beneficial nematodes. These tiny roundworms are great for your yard and will control multiple pests, including gnats and ticks. If you are like me, you hear the worm roundworm and get a little freaked out. Are they really safe for pets and kids? The answer is yes! These types of nematodes are not the kind that affects humans and animals so they are a perfectly safe way to treat your yard naturally.

Once the existing garden and pests were under control, it was time to start learning! I found some great posts from people who have been gardening for a while and know a lot more than me. Here are some of my favorites!

General Tips

These are some great tips about getting started with a new garden.

Learn about creating a backyard garden from Reluctant Stay at Home Mom.

New Mom at 40 has great tips about starting a garden for beginners.

Using seed pods to get a garden started easily from Mama Writes Reviews.

Growing Food

From fruit to vegetables, growing food isn’t as easy as simply planting seeds and waiting. There are different types that are easier and other types that are harder. Here are some tips about growing various types of food.

Herbs are a great thing to grow on your own. Having an indoor herb garden is a great way to keep them handy so that you can use them as needed in the kitchen for great tasting, freshly seasoned food!
Here is a great how-to guide to starting your indoor herb garden from The Beauticle.

Vegetables are top of my list to grow as nothing tastes better than fresh vegetables from a garden! This list from Brooklyn Farm Girl outlines the ten vegetables that are easiest to grow and how to get started.

For more detailed tips about growing lots of different vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and more) I found Farm Fit Living. There are detailed guides on how to be successful in growing vegetables.

I learned about Jerusalem Artichokes from It’s the Little Things in Life. I hadn’t even considered these before reading about them and now I’m definitely intrigued!

The Family Garden

Planting with kids might seem like a crazy idea, but it provides a great learning experience. Motherhood Through My Eyes goes over 5 key benefits of starting a family garden.

To learn how to get started gardening with kids, Gardens that Matter has you covered.

For those with toddlers, Baby Castan on Board has you covered with tips on gardening specifically with young ones.

I still have more research to do, but I’m feeling a lot more prepared and hopeful about starting my garden. Granted, I probably won’t really get started until next summer, but I’m more excited than ever. Having a beautiful and functional garden is my dream, and I can’t wait to realize it.

Have you ever dreamed of having a garden? What’s your favorite part of gardening? Comment below and tell me all about it!

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Lucy At Home UK gentle parenting blogger