Gardening = Love

I'm so excited about planting my garden this year! Last year was my first ever veggie garden. I spent hours and hours prepping the soil, pulling weeds, finding non-chemical ways to repel pests and weeds, Growing seedlings inside, and then finally transferring them outside. I was delighted when there was noticeable growth. I squealed in delight when I was able to pick my first red, vine ripened tomato, and now have a major issue with those little flavorless, red balls they label "tomato" at the grocery store. It was such a fun experience! Considering that I'm normally a little bit of a brown thumb (I have a cactus right now that's dying despite someone swearing to me that they are immortal) I only had a few gardening "issues":

Snails- I don't like to kill anything, so I kept trying to "repel" them. Well, when they managed to kill my pumpkin plant bite by bite, I no longer felt sorry when I heard the "crunch" underfoot. Though I managed to not kill any intentionally...

The Gardener- My in laws ever-so-graciously allowed me to use some space in their yard for my garden. However, they have a crazy gardener that takes it upon himself to pull out things he doesn't like. So one day I stopped by and realized he had pulled out my sugar snap peas. They were tall, and beautiful. Matt had spent an hour making a pretty bamboo lattice that they could climb. Not only Upon talking to him, he said he though they were going to be out of season soon. He was right, except that "soon" was a month away and I hadn't harvested too many of the "snaps" Sadness!

Scout- We found out he too loves red, ripe, tomato's... He was eating them right off of the vine!

This year, I already know what I'm planting!

Tomatoes (for sure!!)
Zucchini
Eggplant
Green onions
Bell pepper
Carrots
Strawberries (they are from last year)
Herbs

I also need to grow some bee-attracting flowers. Last year my many attempts to grow flowers all failed! So I think I'll throw some Lavender, sunflowers, and lots of wildflowers (note: easy to grow)!

I'm excited!! Hurry up spring!!