Homegrown

So yesterday we went for a lovely walk in the beautiful weather, then bought some tomatoes, peppers, and other fun stuff at the nursery.  Plant shopping is probably my favorite kind of shopping!

We've grown our own fruits and veggies for the past few years with mixed results.  Some things didn't grow, some things did, and usually what did grow was eaten first by birds, squirrels, or a certain fruit and veggie-loving pup.  I think I got to eat two tomatoes last year and one pepper.  Not exactly a banner year.

Who needs Snausages when an apple a day keeps the vet with the thermometer away?!

So this year, we're going to try something different.  We've been container gardening up until now because we didn't trust the soil that we inherited with the house.  The previous owner was an avid gardener, but seemed to be the king of DIY.  We're pretty sure he rigged up his own wiring to his shed, he kept hundreds of jars of old nails and screws just in case, and we found pesticide laced ant traps and saltines stashed on top of  the fridge.  Kinda made us think twice about what he used on the soil.

After a couple years of treating everything organically and attempting to grow things in containers with minimal and expensive success, we're ready to test the uncharted waters soils.  Irish is our head gardener, BB is second in line, and I'm the paranoid one scratching because I'm sure a bug bit me.  In other words, Irish and BB enjoy gardening much more without me.  Which is fine.  They garden and report back to me on the progress.  I inspect and supervise as necessary.  At the end of last season, we (meaning Irish) created and prepped several plant beds and corrected soil problems around the yard.  We are now in a good starting position to have a successful year.

So off to the store we went yesterday to pick out all the yummy sounding food fruits & veggies.  We got bright lights swiss chard, broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, onion chives, roman lavender, and strawberries.  I tried several times to convince Irish that we should buy one of the two kale plants left.  He wasn't biting and I was kind of disappointed.  Granted I have no idea what it needs or if it continues to grow after you eat off all the leaves.  But at least we knew it was organic!  We love this local nursery that sells all kinds of plants and is totally organic.  They're often cheaper than the big box stores, they're local grown, and you know that it's safe to eat the food plants because the store didn't pre-poison them for you.

We will also grow herbs when we're a little more into the season.  Beyond that, we'll have to evaluate if there's space left in the garden for anything else.  Since BB is such a veggie lover, we can't plant certain things that are potentially poisonous to pets.  Two years ago she ate all but one garlic before we caught her!  Thankfully she didn't get sick, but I've read that the poison can accumulate (like mercury for humans), so we're being cautious.

Do you garden?  What are your favorite things to plant?  What else do you think we should add to our garden (feel free to support my cry for kale!)?  Do you enjoy the outdoorsy goodness that Spring brings? I don't think I ever realized how incredible spring is until this year.  I used to say that summer was my favorite season, but spring is quickly closing in!  I was also thinking that people should wait until spring to start their NY resolutions.  It's the season of growth and renewal, so why not?!