What should a first garden look like?

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My first garden looked vastly different from what it looks like today. It was 2014, we were going between Lincoln for school and our acreage, had the worst of the overgrowth taken care of and a lot of landscaping done the year before. Our garden main is in the foundation of an old house. The previous owner never had luck growing much in there, so they had rocked it. Then it grew up in shrub trees after he died. 

My husband took the tractor and pulled out the big trees from the garden area, then buried the rocks. We then scrapped some dirt up from the old feedlot area at the farm. Because of the rabbit population, we also had to put a fence around it but didn’t get installed until 2015. We argued over the size. I wanted a larger fire pit area; he wanted a larger area for the garden. I didn’t plant anything that year, he did. He wanted sweet corn, and I was going between Lincoln and home for school all summer, he was home all summer. 

The summer of 2015, I was home and working full time 40 minutes away. I spent a lot of the spring raking the rock to the side or removing it. That year I bought plants and grew a few tomatoes, peppers and cucumber plants that took over. Not impressive looking at all, but hey it was a start and something fun. That fall we fertilized heavy by cleaning out the barn at my in-laws (a lot of horse poop). 

Every year since, the garden has gotten bigger, more diverse, and more productive. I’ve learned and grown in the process. The fire pit has now moved, and the garden has expanded past the main garden to raised beds around the pond and new fire pit area. 

The point is I started simple, with very little, and grew from there. If you try to do it all the at once, you will become overwhelmed and stop. Start small, but start somewhere!