The Gardening Club......

Well, not really, but i am thrilled to have my mother here who was my mentor and founded my desire for gardening.  She has a love of gardening from her father and now it seems that Eden has a love of gardening from me!  :-)  Edy is always eager to help plant and dig, and even weed from time to time.  It makes me happy to see her learning such an important and useful skill and to enjoy doing it at the same time.

This year we have much more land to work from and i no longer have to garden in plant pots on the porch.  We are lucky that the owners of the house we live in were also gardeners and pretty much already had a designated spot for a large garden which all we had to do was till and weed.

This year my goal is to can as much spaghetti sauce as possible for food storage and so i have 34 tomato plants, most of which are Romas that i grew from seed.  I also have i think 8 green pepper plants, and numerous cucumbers growing and butternut squash.  I also have a rhubarb plant that i love, but have never grown before, but it will be 2 or 3 years before i will most likely be able to harvest that.  In addition to our vegetables we have a variety of herbs growing.  We have basil (my favorite), parsley, oregano, greek oregano, dill ( although it's not doing too well - gardening tips welcome on that one), mint, blackberry mint, chocolate mint, and......i think that's it.  :-)

Here's for happy harvesting!

Here's what they look like now, less than 2 months later:

Growing is Glorious!

I LOVE to garden! There is something about watching plants grow that is pure joy for me. I love planting seeds and waiting in anticipation for them to burst through the soil and start flourishing into beautiful flowers or vegetables or whatever it may be. I think it is a part of me, of who I am, of my character even. Nothing is more rewarding I think, in my opinion, than creating, it's what we're born to do.

These are snapdragons...

Petunia's of course...I always have to have some of these....

so easy to grow, grow quickly, and looks magnificent!

Er, this hopefully will be a Bonsai Tree one day...hasn't even sprouted yet....we'll see...

All from seed....Marigolds, another favorite because it makes me think of my childhood and especially my dear mother who taught me to love gardening in the first place.

BASIL! My garden is not complete without this, I have grown basil every year since first having my own garden when we bought our house in Pennsylvania in 2005. It's one of those, once you have it fresh you can't even go back, kind of herbs. This year will be different of course as most of our stuff has to be in pots because we are renters again, but it will suffice for now.

Hmm...survival of the fittest? They were all seeded at the same time.

Okay, so i definitely did not plant this baby, but it looks like someone is enjoying it anyway!

Makes me think of Alice in Wonderland...

These were a mother's day gift from my dear friend Sara Schutz! So pretty!

Most of my tomatoes are in pots this year. I have three that I put in the ground behind this one in the picture, but five others will be in pots. I am excited that weeding will be easier at least. I plan on canning most of them as spaghetti sauce as we're not huge

raw tomato eaters in this family.

So it's a small garden this year, but at least i get to do something. Each day i go outside and take a look...i notice how they grow and there's just something about it that is really thrilling. Perhaps it's self sufficiency, perhaps the beauty, but i really believe it has a lot to do with helping something live and grow. Simply satisfying!