My Learning Curve

Wow, so I go from having a container "garden" (one pot counts, right?) one year to just barely learning how to grow a tomato and pepper plant (or two... actually, way too many - we vastly under-estimated how big those things would get!) the next year, and then come this year, deciding it'd be a good idea to take on a "shade" (or cool-weather) vegetable garden along with our usual but pared down selection of tomato and pepper plants (and herbs, of course!)?? While this may seem like a natural progression to most of you, to me it screams: in over your head!!!! or maybe: who do you think you are?!?

A few years ago, my mom gave me an adorable little metal garden sign with one simple word on it... "Grow" - I think I should have bought a couple more... and added "Please" to the end of it.

Regardless, here we are - spring is upon us (thank you gods of changing seasons!!!) and I hesitate to say it, but so far, so good. *Whisper that while knocking on wood, please, it's safer that way

A week or so ago, in our newly tilled bed (I must plug the great soil we have thanks to the composting efforts of my husband), we planted a couple mesclun mix and spinach plants and started some arugula seeds (which are starting to peek through - keep knocking on that wood!). It's been a lot of fun to throw some "homegrown" lettuce leaves into our salads - plus, I sit squarely in the pro-mesclun mix camp, so this was my cost-effective way of getting more of it in our salads.

I think my only other new veggie garden adventure this year will be into the world of beans. Survey says (Family Feud, anyone?) they are easy to grow and I think they will work nicely in the remaining space (I would LOVE the added height of having them wind up a little trellis thingie but I really don't foresee being able to pull that off) left in the lettuce bed.

My completely unsolicited feedback on growing lettuce all of two weeks into it: I really enjoyed finding something I could plant this early in the season - it fulfilled my spring fever cravings giving me an excuse to get out into the yard which I was desperate for (oooh, I just ended a sentence with a preposition - my eighth grade English teacher would have my neck for that one).

Plus, me working out in the yard means Annabelle gets to be outside longer, which means she can find and chew on more and bigger sticks, and occasionally try and drag one 3 times her length over to Chris to play fetch with... and with that, we know the world is right.

And while I'm here, I'll just warn you that I will be back soon for some of your landscaping advice. Meditate for a few days on these words: abelia, skimmia, and otto luyken laurel. Then be ready to tell me how we can incorporate them into our landscape and/or revive them, in no particular order.

This may or may not become a series - I like to keep you all guessing, did you notice that I never followed up on my "to Wii or not to Wii" comment earlier? It's all a part of the plan.