Monday, April 18, 2011

Watch my garden grow (hopefully)

Well here I go again.  For the past 2 years, I have attempted with little and pretty much no success to produce a garden.  The first year I wasn't sure whether or not I had it in me to grow anything, and well.... I was right.  I limited my small garden (size 2.5ft x 4ft) to zucchini, cucumbers, rosemary, basil, tomatoes, and strawberries.  Now you gardeners may see what I failed to see when I started my ill fated garden.  Too small huh?  Yep it was.  Who knew?  Well I'm sure many people knew but oh well.  The cucumbers spread absolutely everywhere, but didn't produce any fruit and the zucchini plant was huge, but produced no fruit due to a nasty fungus and even nastier bugs.  I really don't like bugs.  The only successful yield from that garden was a huge basil bush which later died because I failed to cover it during a minor frost.  Year 2, I was a bit more ambitious and did a bit more research.  My wonderful husband built me an awesome raised garden bed.  It was  a bit bigger coming in at 4ft x 8ft.  So I planted, you guessed it, zucchini, tomatoes, strawberries, cantaloupe, basil, rosemary, cilantro, and cucumbers.  I was ready or so I thought.  The only survivors that year were a gigantic basil bush, that I later lost to cold weather, and cilantro that died and miraculously came back and is still with us today.  Cilantro anyone?  Well here I am, year 3 and guess what I've got going?  I'll list the obvious first, cucumbers, basil, cilantro (it was resurrected remember?), tomatoes, strawberries and cantaloupe, but in addition to those things, I also planted a few other things.  By a few, I mean, green beans, asparagus, salad lettuce mix, garlic, banana peppers, and corn.  I know it sounds like a lot, but I am equipped with an additional 4ft x 8ft garden box, determination, and a few good friends with proven green thumbs to help me out.  Best case scenario, I will have an abundance of fresh vegetables and can under take my next big challenge.  Canning!!!  Who knows, I may qualify for some type of government subsidy or tax write off for my huge agricultural contributions.  Just kidding of course.  Worse case scenario, basil or cilantro anyone?