Thumbs turning a shade of green

By Elisabeth

Until now, I've never been much of a gardener.

We have a landscaped backyard, but it came with the house. The roses out in front are downright gorgeous, but really aren't that difficult to maintain (as long as you have a neighbor who knows everything about gardening and can give you pointers the first year you attempt to prune back your bushes.)

Now that my kids are showing interest in how things grow, I wanted to do something about it. My good friend Danielle purchased a raised container garden for her backyard. I was quite interested in this contraption, since most of my yard was already spoken for.

I really wanted everything that we grew to be organic. It was easy to find the potting/gardening soil, but finding plants that were organic was a whole other issue. My local large hardware stores only carried organic seeds. Since I was late in the "getting my plants in the ground" stage, seeds were not for me this year. So, I went to my local Whole Foods Market and was surprisingly pleased with the selection! There were organic plants EVERYWHERE. I purchased 6 baby plants for my container and 3 more for pots I already had. (Seems strawberries take over your entire garden at some point, so I planted them by themselves.)

Here's hoping we get lots of basil, rosemary, chives, tomatoes, tomatillos, red peppers, cucumbers, and asparagus (which will harvest in the third year. GREAT.)

I hope to return with budding garden news in a few weeks. We've already eaten one strawberry due to a smaller child thinking it was REAL FUNNY to pull one off prior to perfection. Oh well, they thought it tasted "DELICIOUS."

Mission accomplished.

{photo credit: me}

Comments

[Sonja von Franck]

My son and I were saying it was like that episode of Oswald where his tomatoes keep being eaten by the birds(?) Our first strawberry formed and we were so excited and couldn't wait for it to be big enough to pick, and then the next day we went out and something had eaten the whole bottom half! So today, I spotted a red perfect little ball and I popped it in my mouth before anything else found it! It was about the size of a raspberry and my husband couldn't believe I picked and ate it so fast until I told him why. This is my first year for strawberries and I'm interested about the runners. I've definitely got some vines that have jumped pot and rooted into the grass around the container. Guess I could read up on it but for now I'm just waiting to see what happens. Good luck!!