HSV Garden Challenge

I saw this challenge on a blog I frequent.  I thought it fit into my frugal challenge.  Goodness knows that I need help with getting started!  I went out this morning to take pictures of the garden.  This is the state it is in at the present moment:

The lighter colored wood are the new frames for the two new beds we are putting in.  One of which is resting on top of an older bed.  The grass you see growing is wheat grass. I'm thinking we need to grow wheat grass for our lawn up front!

Each bed is 4' by 8'.   With the amount of produce we consume I don't think these are going to get us too far.  But at this point any help in the food budget will be welcomed.  I am praying we have much more success than we did last year.  My desire to make gardening a priority is only going so-so.  With a newborn and a child still recovering from appendicitis, my efforts have only gone so far as doing some reading.  Which will eventually pay off, but it isn't getting us anywhere in the present.

The long brown grass/weeds you see behind the electrical box is where I hope to put a herb garden.  We really need to get to it in the next couple of weeks or we will have to wait till next year.  Those are some very hardy weeds. We need to rip them up, move or remove rocks and then cover the area with newspaper.

Plans for the Garden:

So far we have seeds for the following:

tomatoes

cucumbers

carrots

lettuces

green beans

watermelon

zucchini

I would like to get try our hand at all of them.  My hope is that we will be able to have enough for our present needs and then be able to preserve some for the winter months.  I would also love to be able to use some garden season extension ideas.  With the mild weather in the spring and fall we should be able to grow things for about 8 or 9 months out of the year.

Resources:

I basically check out any gardening book I can get my hands on at my local library.  I frequent a few blogs that are garden themed heavy. The blogs are mostly for inspiration. The ones I read are:

Farmama

Freedom Gardens

Path to Freedom

The library books that I have out currently:

You Grow Girl

What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)

Your Backyard Herb Garden

Secrets to Great Soil

Some ideas I have looked up on line for our garden are:

No till method

Lasagna gardening

One book that I own that I really enjoy is, "The Backyard Homestead".  This book has a little bit of everything and as such doesn't go into great detail about any one thing.  It is definitely more for inspiration, to open your eyes to possibilities.

Involvement:

 The girls are all very excited about starting a garden.  Moira (11) in particular has been very eager to start.  I am going to incorporate gardening in with our homeschooling by having them learn about how plants grow.  They can do nature study right there in the garden.  We took the Charlotte Mason approach to schooling and nature study is a part of that.  I think having them sketch the various stages of the plants would be very beneficial. One of the main skills that nature study creates is the eye for detail.  I bought the kids small trowels and forks so that they could be more involved.

For some reason I can't get the button to appear on my page.  Please visit the Homeschool Village Garden Challenge here.