Fields and Fine Linen: Gardening

One week until my one-month-iversary with my garden! And things are actually growing!

Green pepper

Cucumber

Zucchini Squash

This is a huge accomplishment for me already. Especially since I went away for 10 days to visit my parents and didn't quite know what to expect when I came home. When I left there was lots of rain in the forecast, so when my parents asked me who was watering my garden I answered, "The sky."

The sky was not faithful to its promises, however. Or maybe the weather-person needs a new job. In any case, a friend was kind enough to water for me after 4 dry days and then it finally did rain.

When I got home the plants were all growing nicely in their designated rows, but some friends I did not recognize came to visit. So today I weeded my garden for the first time. Or I hope I weeded, at least, and not "vegetabled." I don't really know what a weed looks like versus what a vegetable plant looks like , so I just played a nice game of "guess which one of these doesn't belong??" with myself and pulled a bunch of crap out of there. We'll see in a few weeks whether I pulled the right things!

So far I can say one thing about my garden: I've learned a lot! Which is a nice way of saying I've made a lot of mistakes and hope to not repeat them next year. My parents are already doubting that I'll even have a vegetable garden next year. Those doubters (hi dad!). We'll see.

In any case, I already know my garden is way to big for how many plants I have. Next year: smaller garden. I'm also contemplating doing a raised square foot garden next year instead of a regular in-the-ground one. I *almost* did one of those this year, but some more experienced gardeners told me not to invest the money building one of those (lumber, soil, etc) until I knew whether I really liked gardening. Some of my friends have their square-foot gardens on facebook and I LOVE them. So lush and attractive. Since I planted right in the ground on a slope (only part of the yard that gets full sun), mine's a bit (okay a lot) of a crooked eyesore right now.

Don't tell it I said this, but I wince I little when I look at it. Next year will be prettier.

I'm also contemplating just going with container gardening next year. I had a few plants leftover (back when I thought my garden was "full"- yea right. Who wrote the spacing requirements on my seed packets??), so I planted them in some extra pots I had around. Look how pretty.

I *think* these are tomatoes. But I'm not entirely sure.

And my indoor herb pot looks pretty great too. Although in hindsight I wish I would have done one for cilantro and one for basil; this one has both and the cilantro is over-powering the basil. And although I love cilantro, I was more excited about the basil. I might just have to get another one of these pots and dedicate it to basil alone.