I've been doing a home garden for about two months.

In conclusion, it's incredibly fun.

Around the time Golden Week ended, I decided to start the home garden on my balcony that I'd been wanting to do for a while. I heard many people start it to save money, so I wanted to see for myself how much of a financial benefit it actually provides.
However, as someone who has never even pruned a plant, I am a total beginner. I felt anxious, but I figured I wouldn't know until I tried, so I started.

First, choosing the vegetables to grow.
Since I want to aim for a harvest by summer, I decided to grow the summer vegetable trio: eggplant, bell pepper, and tomato.

After that, I bought planters and soil on Amazon, picked up seedlings at a local home improvement store, and finally got started.

At first, the vegetables grew steadily, extending their branches and blooming flowers. My wake-up time even got about 15 minutes earlier to take care of them.

Then, one month after I started, something strange happened to the eggplant.
Powdery mildew appeared on the lower branches. Powdery mildew is a disease where white, mold-like spots appear on the leaves, and if left untreated, it negatively affects growth—a hateful disease that ruins my beloved vegetables.
To deal with it, I bought a treatment spray and applied it. Since it was in the early stages, I only had to sacrifice a few leaves.

Around this time, the vegetables I had nurtured like my own children gradually began to bear fruit and continued to grow well. It was truly a joy to have them respond with results.

And about a month and a half after starting, I finally harvested the eggplant and bell pepper.
I had them as tempura, and they tasted better than any eggplant or bell pepper I'd ever eaten. They might have been amateurish compared to what professional farmers grow, but there's no way something I raised from a seedling and managed myself every morning wouldn't taste good. That was the moment I thought, 'I'm so glad I started a home garden.'

But the home garden doesn't end here. The next fruits are already starting to form. My mission now is to raise these little ones to be magnificent.

Current challenges include the tomatoes remaining green and stopping their growth. Also, perhaps due to a lack of fertilizer, the bell peppers are frequently falling off before they get big. I want to keep learning and facing these challenges alongside my vegetables.

When the harvest season for the vegetables I planted this year ends, I plan to calculate the total cost and how much time I spent on it every day. I hope it can be a help to those who want to start a home garden.

Well then, more to come later.