Today is all about the garden! I am so in love with my garden. We have put so much love and work into it (and yes, we pray for it almost every night!), and we just picked our first zucchini today!
We started months ago by ordering seeds. I ordered from Johnny's because of recommendations from my gardening guru mentor and friend, Kay Auten. It was hard to choose which seeds we were going to buy - looking through that Johnny's catalogue was like Christmas in March! Not only do you have to eliminate fruits and vegetables, but then you have to decide which of the 19 carrot varieties you actually want to grow. Whew - that was a fun task. I'm already taking notes about what I should add for next year!
Then I veered a little off course and bought the most amazing rosemary bush at the farmer's market in Columbia, SC. I didn't have enough cash, but the lady selling it was so nice (and I think she realized the sheer desperation in my voice) that she gave it to me for all change and one dollar bills I had in my pocket. If you're going to veer off the plan for anything, it should definitely be rosemary. Oh man, I could do an entire blog series on rosemary and how much I love it.
Then we started growing everything. It is really fun to grow things from seed, but it is a little nerve-wracking as well. I had a lot of things that didn't come up. Also, I killed a lot of things (ie: all 36 of the sunflowers) just because I didn't follow the directions and left the dome on the seeds too long. Whoops. Lesson one learned. I was so excited to get things started, that I planted almost everything - I later realized that you really are supposed to plant things like carrots and beans directly in the ground. Whoops. Lesson two learned.
Unfortunately, the spot that we deemed as the best place in the garden was right in the middle of our yard. So Matt set out clearing all of the grass. Not only did he get the grass out of the garden plot, but he rolled it all up and transplanted it to the front yard where the yard was washing away!
Then we borrowed "The Horse" from the afore-mentioned gardening guru, and Matt tilled the garden. I think that was probably his favorite part. We added lots of compost and soil amendments, and laid out the plan for the garden.
So, this is mostly how our gardened ended up going in the ground. I forgot to lay out all of the basil plants, so most of those ended up in pots.
Check back later this weekend for an update on the garden with plants in the ground!
