I did enjoy my gardening last year, and this year, it is going to be a bit of a challenge.
pretty baby pansy that came up in my most abundantly growing hanging basket that suffered a heat stroke one day and promptly died the next day. 
First, we have to clean up the mess that winter left behind, and I do mean WINTER. There was no clean-up at the end of the fall or any preparation for this spring, so there are dead tomato plants all over, other dead things, weeds growing madly with the warming sunshine we have been experiencing lately, debris and different bits of trash and other random things floating around the garden. In fact, looking at it inspires quite the opposite of motivation to clean it up. I will share the embarrassing photos with you. I’m considering getting Mei a sitter for part of a day soon, once my starter seeds have (hopefully) grown and are ready for transfer so that I can prepare the beds, till the soil and get everything ready for a hopefully, bountiful harvest later this year.
the compost bin and area where we had previously planted potatoes ... the bit of fence will be used for training pea shoots
where we planted the potatoes, but this was a hard to get to area and we have decided to grow corn here instead
our burn barrel and one of the raised beds
the wall, along which we plan to put our tomato plants in large planters with trellis' since it will get the best & longest exposure to the sun each day
half of the side yard, once cleaned up will house independent planters and trellis' for our vast assortment of veggies
the other "half' of our side yard with the second and largest of the raised beds that runs the length of the fence
last bit of our side yard, a ground-level area where we have planted the strawberry plants and that will house our potato box, radishes, pumpkins and squash
This will be the last garden in this house before we move. By this time next year, we will be moving on to…. well, not sure where yet – we have our wishlist of two places, but it is hard to say where the hubby’s job will place us; but we will have our answer soon enough! Because this is the second and last garden in this house, the hubby and I have some regal plans for veggies and things we plan to grow. We have been hoarding seeds and probably planning to tend to too many things at once, but what the heck – you can call it a “last ditch effort” if you like.
this godzilla scared cow chips out of me when I saw it, sitting in the hanging basket... I demand to know who put it there??! LOL!
Due to the success of the tomatoes last year, and my newly acquired canning equipment on our recent trip back to the States, I have some new and improved plans for tomato trellis’, planters, locations and strategy for growing A TON of tomatoes so I can make the roasted tomato salsa that I had intended to make last year and can, but couldn’t. The two things I’m going to focus on are cilantro and tomatoes, but we are growing a whole lot more than that! I have also been looking into and reading about how to better grow peas too, since that is one of the first things I got to successfully grow in our greenhouse the first spring, but they suddenly stopped growing after about two feet of growth and never bore any fruit. We are pretty sure it had to due with the overly dry conditions in our greenhouse. No matter what we did with the dirt in the greenhouse, it had dried out long ago and without a continuous water supply,probably wasn’t going to maintain enough water to grow much of anything. We planted some bulbs in there too and those didn’t go over well at all either. Go figure.
Patella, on high alert for neighbor dogs, pigeons and squirrels!
Other parts of the yard, aside from the raised beds have spurred some discussion. There is a section that I want to completely wipe out, dig up all the weeds and plant either bulby plants to make it pretty, or veggies that require full sun because it is in just a wonderful place for that. We are also working on hanging basket tomatoes and other things for hanging baskets around the backyard. I had them really growing the first year until we were suddenly afflicted with a straight week of over 80 degree weather and no matter when during the day I watered my plants, the sun would scorch the soil and water droplets that landed on the leaves and by the end of that week, most of my plants were dead. It was a sad week. There was nothing I could do to counteract it.
This spring, I have plenty of energy for gardening and maintaining, since it is something that I can keep up on while Mei takes her afternoon naps. Patella will love it too because it means I will spend time outside with her and she has been really interested in following us around the house and yard lately (she probably needs a playmate, badly,… but we just aren’t ready for the potential vet bills from purchasing another addition to our family – nor the prospects of having to transport TWO animals instead of one wherever we move next). But in July, when this baby is due (a girl, by the way for those that are wondering!), it will become much harder to have the energy and time to tend to my garden. Hopefully by then, it will not require as much tending to – and while I will have help, it is something that I really enjoyed doing alone and taking a lot of pride in.
our resident rhubarb plant ... somewhat obstructed by weeds that need pulling
Over the winter, we purchased a bag of starter potatoes and garlic bulbs, and Pinterest is a wonderful thing. It has introduced me to the idea of the potato box. It is a method of growing over 100 potatoes in a 4X4 space. Granted, the construction of the box is going to be completely up to the husband unit, since it isn’t something that I can buy and I’m not really good with the wood and power tools, probably because I would rather buy pre-constructed items and just fill with compost/soil and seeds/starter plants, but it is something that I’m sure will be a cinch for him and allow us to save some space in the garden for other things.
my planter with the most magnificent smelling blue flowers... also needs some weeding but what the heck, they are making their appearance anyways!
bulb-y plants that are coming up that we neither planted nor had come up in the previous two years... dunno what they are yet... dont even know that they will "bloom"... hmmm...
love that the baby pansies have infiltrated our yard... where did they come from? they are EVERYWHERE!!!
One of the other things we planted our first spring here is a bunch of strawberry plants. There was a great, not-raised bed but low-bed that we put them in and they grow each year, but with the amount of weeds that grow around them, choking some of them out and making it very difficult to get to both full rows of; they have become plants that just return each year and that we watch grow and become rather lush with berries but then never do much about from there. Is that terrible? Partly, my problem is that I would never eat the berries since they were planted in soil that was pre-existing that I didn’t buy and apparently that turns me off of them. I don’t know why. Oh well…. I do plan to pick, weed and eat them this year though – make the most of our garden and hopefully document all the wonderful things we can get to grow there!
my starter tomatoes and two bags of potatoes, destined for the potato box
some plants I bought during a great sale for our hanging baskets around the exterior of the house
I'm drawn to pansies... especially the singing variety!
Patella supervising the temporary placement of the plants we bought on the raised beds while we unload the rest of our "haul"
Now all that is left is all of the preparation, weeding, soil and compost mixing and growing the starter plants. There is a fair amount that we are planning to grow only if we can get the starter seeds to propagate properly. Hopefully, all my preparation and hardwork will pay off since it would be so cool to see how many great things we can grow in our garden and different things that we will be able to eat and make out of them. For Christmas last year, I purchased a copy of John Besh’s “My Family Table” cookbook which is chockfull of great, family style dishes that are so versatile such as “Any Fruit Cobbler,” “Creamy Any Vegetable Soup,” “Risotto Almost Anything,” etc. The only thing that would make this garden to table project more fun is going fishing for our own fish here and again…. but then we have talked about a family, pre-baby fishing trip to either Scotland or Ireland just for some deep-sea fishing with Mei. It would just be a fun family tradition to go deep-sea fishing in each country we lived in and in as many waters as possible. While my husband and his family might give me a hard time about not wanting to camp, deep-sea fishing is something we did as a couple on our honeymoon and haven’t since but have talked about doing again and again. It is a great family tradition, something that Mei and our next child could look forward to each year, or multiple times during the year, as well as growing your own garden wherever you are, with even just a couple of veggies or fruits to enjoy – or heck, just herbs and a tradition that we can take with us no matter where in the world we are living!
Is there any better way to say, I’m so just darn excited about spring??!
