Maybe I Have a Green Thumb After All!

I don't have a good history of keeping things alive. And by things, I mean things that grow in the ground. Obviously I can keep SOME things alive...I mean, I do have two kids after all who are very much alive.

But I've never been able to keep any kind of plant alive for very long. And my luck with flowers in the yard hasn't been so great either.

But despite that, I decided this year I wanted to try to grow something. Several somethings, actually. I decided I wanted to grow food!

My neighbor's sister (Denise is my neighbor, Cindy is her sister) moved here last fall to stay with Denise while her husband is in Afghanistan. Cindy had a garden last year. We got to talking and decided we could do a garden here, and since she had experience, she could teach me!

So we decided to plant a garden and split it. It's not a huge one, but a good starter garden. She has 5 rows and I have 5. We started working on it in April, getting the ground ready and then getting everything planted. And today, it doesn't even resemble the way it looked 3 months ago. It's growing like crazy! And I'm eating food from it already!!!

I have to say, I never knew how much satisfaction would come from growing my own veggies! My husband laughs at me a little bit over how excited I get about it. But I can't help it! Even I'M surprised at how much fun I'm having!

I planted tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, onions, green onions, 2 kinds of lettuces, spinach and sweet potatoes. I also planted basil, oregano, parsley, cilantro, dill, chives and mint.

I've already had plenty of squash, zucchini and cucumbers to pick. I've had more lettuce than I know what to do with. I picked my first 3 jalapeno peppers the other day, and I couldn't wait any longer, so I picked 3 green tomatoes for frying. I've been using my herbs and need to use more of them up. Yesterday I used some basil and spinach and made a wonderful pesto.

For someone who never could keep a houseplant alive, things are going quite well in the garden! Apparently Cindy is teaching me well! She has given me lots of tips, but I've done all the planting (of my side) and tending myself, with the exception of her watering for me a few times when I wasn't at home. Maybe my thumb is at least a little green after all!

I'm already trying to figure out how to make this garden bigger next year. And we learned that our rows need to be a bit further apart - it's getting very difficult to walk between them!

I thought I'd share a few pictures. I have a TON of them, so I'm not going to try to post them all, but here are a few several!

CJ getting the ground ready:

Ruthi's helping too!

Rows are ready and planted.

First watering.

Squash are growing!

Cucumbers are growing!

Tomatoes too!

So much lettuce, and some spinach too.

First squash ready to eat!

Sweet Potatoes are doing well.

Bell Peppers growing!

More veggies to eat - squash, cucumbers and a big zucchini!

Sink packed full of lettuce!

More goodies - basil, peppers and a bit of oregano.