Gardening

I finally got around to planting our spring garden today. I was going to skip it this year since we're hoping to have a new house and this one rented out by May. But now that we're looking at months before we hear anything back from the bank, I've decided that we might as well start the garden and enjoy it while we can. I'm about a month behind (for Phoenix), but hopefully my plants will produce some veggies before the summer heat kills everything.

For us, the major work of gardening is getting the beds ready. We have 6 raised beds that we built a few years ago that are awesome! They have seriously reduced the back and knee pain involved in gardening. But it still is work aerating the soil, adding any amendments or additional soil (since the raised beds do start to sink eventually), and clearing out the debris. The planting itself is the easy part!

Today I transplanted 6 tomatoes, 4 cucumbers, 4 sweet peas, 2 eggplant, 1 zucchini, 1 crook-neck squash, 3 bell peppers, 4 green chili peppers, and a whole bunch of herbs and marigolds. I usually try to start these from seed, but since I started so late this year, I was reduced to buying transplants. Seed is so much more preferable as then I can control the varieties much better - this year I've been reduced to depending on the varieties supplied by the local nurseries. So we'll see how they do!

As far as seeds, I planted some radishes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, nasturtiums, and sunflowers. I love the spring when all the plants are small and manageable, when the seeds start poking up through the soil, and when the bugs are not so plentiful to be a nuisance.

In the next few weeks I'll be planting some peas and beans (from seed) and I'll be starting the melons (also from seed). After that, I'll be done planting and the real work (a.k.a. keeping those stinking squash bugs off my plants) will be begin!