My Idaho Life: Ready To Get Our Hands Dirty

As the ground slowly thaws and the snow melts, our thoughts turn to warmer days and lush, growing plants in our garden. Our mouths are watering, thinking about the bounty of veggies and fruits from years past.

"They look professionally grown!"

We are troubleshooting issues we had last year regarding low-grade crops and slow/no growth. We're going to better augment the soil, rotate some crops, stagger growth cycles better and reduce the number of crops per bed (in some cases). Oh, and we are really, really going to try and be better at thinning (our least favorite gardening chore).

Presenting our 2016 Garden Plan:

Last year, we planted sunflowers against the inside of the fence on the garden perimeter, but they didn't bloom until very late in the season. This year, we're going to try decorative corn.

We hope to get more apples from our Haralred tree, and maybe some Honeycrisp this year, too. Last year, a mighty wind came through in late spring and blew all of our blossoms away :-(

We're going to bring our pumpkin and decorative squash plants back to their original bed. Last year's bed move did not work. We're hoping to recreate 2014's bumper crop:

It was a little difficult to harvest and maneuver around the bed,
but it was beautiful and prolific.

We look forward to rising early (Teddy will help us there), getting out into the garden in the morning sun and sowing, weeding, watering, and eventually, harvesting our bounty!