Beginner Gardening: New Member, 1 by jardindeville

jardindeville wrote:
Hi all!

I’m new to Dave’s Garden and to gardening and so thought I would introduce myself. My name is Madeleine and I live in Boston, Massachusetts – Zone 6A – in a neighborhood with big, sunny back yards. This is my very first year growing vegetables – with two 4x4 beds raised 2½ feet high (because I’m starting to get too old for kneeling) and one 2x10 bed raised 1 foot high for tomatoes and asparagus. Next year we hope to build two more 4x4 raised beds.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes this year – mostly over-watering and failing to watch for bugs before they ate the spinach – but the garden is starting to look good. We’re already eating the lettuce and kale, and the carrots and cherry tomatoes are looking promising. So far we haven’t used any pesticides, but are experimenting with companion planting. I was hoping that the Mexican marigolds would be good bug repellants, but they haven’t bloomed yet.

It was hard choosing a nickname because my first two choices, “City Garden” and “Frenchie” were already taken. So I tried putting “City Garden” into French and it worked.