A Garden at Last!

Okay, I know, I waited a really long time to actually plant a garden, and you may have wondered if I was ever going to do it.  But take heart, because the garden has been planted! It's not exactly what I planned in the beginning, but I'm really bad to bite off more than I can chew, or start a big project that I never finish, so I hoped that if I planted just a few things, I might actually harvest a few things.
Also, planting a full garden takes a lot of work, space and maintenance, that I'm not ready to commit to I bought a book back in the winter called "You Grow Girl" by Gayla Trail.  It was absolutely awesome!  It had so much information about container gardening-everything a beginner needs to know.  It explains about where and how to plant, how to keep pests and bugs away, what can be planted where, what can go together, what should be kept apart, etc.  So much info!  However, I did think that it was more about flowers than vegetables, and while I am interested in flowers and plants, the main thing I want is veggies.  So, I did a little more reseearch and found another book that Gayla wrote called "Grow Great Grub."  Her books are mostly geared towards people who live in apartments and don't have space for a full garden, but it works for me because, to be perfectly honest, I don't want to plow up my yard to plant, and I've tried the whole raised-bed thing before, and I think that's more trouble than it's worth.  So call me lazy or un-dedicated if you want, but I chose to do all of my gardening in containers. 

And this is it!  I'm really exxcited about it.  I'm hoping that it will work for me.  Most vegetables require full sun (at least six hours a day) and this part of my yard gets a lot of sun, so I think they should be good there.  I'm gonna keep my great grub guide handy and hopefully not over-water or under-water.  The pots along the bottom wall have tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and strawberries, and the top rail holds my my herbs and a pot of lettuce. (Please ignore my junk.  It's a work in progress)

I'm a little obsessed with chalkboard paint on flower pots, so I painted on the front of them and marked what was inside.  This is a gyspy sweet pepper.  Billy stuffs them with a magical mixture of cream cheese, bacon bits and cheddar cheese and grills them in the summer.  They are SO GOOD!  I planted three different types of tomatoes (I'm a big fan) and this one is a Sweet Cherry tomato.  I love little tomatoes cut in half with some salt and pepper sprinkled on top.  Another favorite of mine is to cut them in half, and rip a piece of string cheese up into little pieces, put them on top and microwave for just a few seconds until the cheese melt and the tomatoes are just barely warm.  YUM! My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

Our original plan was to plant a few small strawberry plants in a long, shallow pot on the deck rail, but I think we waited too long and the only thing we could get was one big one. 

Yes, that is an old lunchbox with floweres planted inside.  I loved that Snow Princess when I bought it in the early spring, but they aren't doing very well in the bed, so I thought I'd try something different for a little while.

I'm not a huge fan of bell peppers, but I like one every once in a while with some dip or fried with some minute steak.

Yea! More tomatoes.  A Better Boy and a Better Bush.

And cucumbers for some pickles, I hope.

These are not vegetables, but a few red and white petunias.  I hope they're going to expand and fill the whole pot-if Nellie will leave them alone.

So, my garden isn't exactly what I originally planned, but I think it's better for me this way.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for success!

Now that I'm not working, every day brings a new project.  Hopefully I'll find the time and patience to sit down and blog about them all soon!

Lynz