Gardening for Dummies

At least, that is my level of gardening. I have grown roses with great success in our old home, but here I was determined to have a vegetable garden. So this is my first year of full fledged gardening (even though I did get a few meager tomatoes, carrots and lettuce last year).

So when I read Amy's post this week about her gardening research, I was thrilled! Not only because she confessed to having a black thumb, but because after a year that did not quite meet her expectations she was willing to try again.

When we moved last year I did try to plant some seeds, but by the time we fixed the irrigation issue it was simply too hot and too late in the season to be successful. I was disappointed, but determined to try again.

So far this year I have planted green beans, yellow beans, two kinds of carrots (the first of three mini rows of each), and a lettuce mix (again, the first mini row of each). Oh, and homemade pickle cucumbers - any ideas why I would possibly have planted those???? Tuesday evening I planted 4 kinds of tomatoes and 3 kinds of peppers (sweet green/red, sweet golden, and jalepeno for jelly!)

So far the carrots are making an effort to break through, but a dear friend of mine would call them belly carrots because you have to be on your belly to see them!

And as you can tell in the picture below, the lettuce is making it's leafy presence known too!

Okay, so it is just a little presence, but still, it is sprouting!

And we are finally seeing the first of the bean plants

I am hoping to finish planting the basil and cilantro this week, and then I am done except for the weeding....sigh. And I will likely see if there are places I can squeeze in some herbs still. I would definitely like to plant some chamomile and lavender as I love those, and hopefully some oregano too.

I did try to start my seeds inside this year, and that was a colossal failure. Without having a south facing window to put them in or a permanent light over head, they got leggy, and while I think most of the peppers are salvageable, the rest are not, so I lost a good number of seeds, but I learned something important, so that counts too. Here in southern California I can plant my seeds directly outside by early March, so there really is no reason to start ahead, even though growing up that is the way it was done by the women who gardened because the season was so short. For the seeds I did plant I simply put a thin bamboo skewer beside each seed so I knew where to look, then did the same thing for each seedling so I knew where to expect stuff. I am planting in a raised flowerbed so it is not the traditional row garden.

Before my husband and I married I never had a garden to learn in or play in. No one taught me how to garden or plan or anything like that. My husband comes from a long line of gardeners. And it encourages me so much that they just smile and answer my rank amateur questions and encourage me along, rejoicing in my feeble successes, and commiserating over my failures, assuring me that it has happened to them too. I am not sure I believe that last part, I think they are just trying to make me feel better, but you know what? It works!

So are there any other newbie gardeners out there? What are your plans?

How about you experts? What is your favorite thing to plant?