Marshalls Abroad

Life

The Beginnings of Our Garden

If you need John Shea, you can find him “helping” Daddy with the beginnings of our raised garden. He especially loves to play with the wood chips (Cam is using them as soil covering — this was his inspiration!), eating dirt and cracking up while scooting his whole body through the tomato plants. These are not the greatest photos because I had to keep grabbing our little gardener before he pulled a basil plant clear out of the ground.

All of the empty spots are where seeds are planted. Cam built the raised bed when we moved into our house and has been working hard on it the past few weekends. It’s such a joy to plant and watch God make it grow, and then eat the gorgeous, flavorful foods He made. We had a potted garden on our back deck in Okinawa, but so appreciate having one now in our backyard. We’re loving it! Including planted seeds, we have pumpkins, summer squash, tomatoes, basil, oregano, arugula, rosemary, zucchini, cucumber, lettuce, a couple varieties of flowers, and cilantro, parsley, carrots and broccoli on the way. We hope to be able to teach John Shea to know and appreciate where his food comes from as he grows up. We wish we were allowed to have backyard chickens here! I’ll take more photos once the rest of our vegetables and flowers have grown in.


Comments

  1. ~Seth and Nancy~ says

    can you grow throughout the year then in CA? I've grown up on the East coast and the summer is the only time that you can really have a garden! It would be fun to be able to grow stuff for a longer period of time.

  2. Rachael A says

    Love growing my own food here in the UK, we are looking forward to making some fresh bruschetta with the tomatoes picked yesterday. I also love having all my herbs growing outside the kitchen door so I can just grab them as and when I need them. My bay tree is of course, my pride and joy!

  5. Legally Lovely says

    Looks great! We have raised beds and chickens. The chickens are great, but they did destroy a lot of my strawberries. 🙁

    Curious about the wood chips – I've never seen that! Does it help with the weeds?

    • Amanda Marshall says

      It does help with the weeds!! Cam is a total believer in it now. I think it takes a few years for the wood chip system to really set in. We don't have that kind of time here, but even in the small amount of time we've had it down, it's done wonders. It keeps a lot of the moisture in the soil and weeds out!

  6. Caravan Sonnet says

    Aww this looks so wonderful!! I LOVE gardens and can't wait to have another one someday!!! 🙂 There is something so beautiful about watching the Lord grow new plants isn't there? I am so curious about the wood chips also!! I was just reading your answer above ^ what a great idea!! I am definitely going to remember that for the future!! Thank you for sharing!!
    Hugs friend!
    🙂 Rebecca

  7. Gabriella H says

    How amazing!! I really crave a garden space, especially in the summer time, but I hope our time for a little backyard will come one day, too. Until then I'll enjoy our balcony garden – we will be harvesting our first ripe tomatoes this week! 🙂

  8. Julie says

    love it! gardening with a little "helper" is challenging, but funny. finn is always trying to dig things up, too. we are totally overwhelmed with tomatoes right now – not even elijah can keep up! i love feeding them from our garden though – so fun to be sending the carrots and peppers and tomatoes that they helped grow in their lunch boxes. =) we're already thinking about what we want to do for next year – maybe some larger tomatoes so i can can them for the winter? i've been hesitant to plant broccoli, so i will be glad to hear about how yours did. love you!

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