This past weekend was garden weekend. The date Ellie and I had decided to plant the vegetable garden. And we did. After a month of work, one quarter of the vegetable garden was ready for planting.

We have 25 tomato plants in the ground. There are 12 more that we have to find spots for. Ellie had great success with her seeds and plans to make lots of tomato soup this fall. We put in two rows of onions, which will also come in handy for the soup.

We have many more seeds to go and much more of the garden to clear, but major progress has been made.

At the start of May, I shared my to-do list for getting the garden back to a manageable state. Here’s how I did.

Edge the garden – I made it all the way around the outside, raking leaves, cutting back grass, weeds and trees. I have been carefully mowing around the edge to try and keep it clear. I would like to break out my weedeater to clean up even more.

Remove trees – I cut an embarrassing number of trees over the last month. Embarrassing because it shows just how much I have neglected the garden. Some were very tangled in the fence. Some had firewood size trunks. Some roots were particularly stubborn. The trees will come back to the garden as woodchips. My brush pile has grown a lot over the last month and has farther to go. Half of the garden is completely untouched, and there are more trees to tackle.

Prune raspberries – All of the old canes are gone. The live canes are tucked into the wires. The rows are weeded. The path between them is mulched. Everything is much cleaner.

Prune grapes (?) – I did not end up pruning the grapes. For now, I decided to just wrangle them. This meant gathering all of the wild vines that were growing in all directions and wiring them to the fence. The vines stretch almost halfway around the ring. One vine was dead, but the other seven are alive and seem to be doing well. We have so, so, so many bunches of baby grapes. We also have quite a few grape flea beetles, which I’ve been picking off and squishing. If the grapes grow and ripen, we will have quite a crop this year. Cleaning up the grapes has also made it much easier to mow around the outside of the garden.

Repair trellises – I added some wires to the berry trellises. I could definitely tighten the original wires but am hoping I might not have to. I pulled out the tomato trellises on the weekend when Ellie was planting her seedlings. They are in really rough shape and are currently held together with hope and as many screws as I could drill into the old brittle wood. They will definitely need some reinforcement to make it through the season and then a complete rebuild. The squash A-frame still needs some repairs, but it’s in the untouched half of the garden, so a lot of things need to happen before the trellis makes it to the top of the list.

Establish planting beds and pathways – Very little trace of the beds and paths I’ve built in past years remained. I’m trying a no dig approach, so to start over I mowed the weeds extremely short and then laid down cardboard to suppress them from growing back. Over top of the cardboard I layered woodchips (if it’s a path) or compost (if it’s a planting area). I made three very wide beds, and that is where Ellie and I started planting.

The year of the garden will be continuing. Now I have to maintain what I’ve established. I also want to work my way around the rest of the garden and clear more sections. Here’s what’s next on my list.

Keep planting – We have quite a few seeds still to go.

Make space for watermelons – Ellie’s seedlings include some watermelons, so we want to get them in the ground as soon as possible to maximize the growing season. Our seed provider recommends using landscape fabric to help warm up the soil. It would also help manage weeds, so I think we’re going to try that.

The squash A-frame – The squash trellis is adjacent to the future watermelon plot, so clearing space for the watermelons leads very easily into this section. I need to clear the space under the trellis, screw the trellis back together and then finally we can plant. I’d like to try using one side of the trellis for peas and cucumbers, so there’s more motivation to make this structure useable again.

I am very proud of where the garden is at now. We’ve even had a harvest with our asparagus. Picking asparagus and immediately cooking it for dinner is a special way to enjoy our food and it motivates me to keep working on the garden.

I hope I can keep the momentum and motivation going as the year of the garden continues.

Are you gardening this year? What’s the biggest success you’ve had so far? What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing?