Beginner Garden

My parents never had a garden, but as a child, I often had access to fresh vegetables, pickled peppers and chow chow, and fresh, delicious, strawberry jam. One of my earliest memories is one of skipping the last day of school to drive out to Pappy's house. He had a few acres of land he planted every year with strawberries, peppers, peanuts, and other vegetables. I was tasked with dropping exactly three seeds into each hole. We made a sort of assembly line out of it: Pappy dug the hole, I dropped in the seeds, and my dad covered it up.

My Parsley

So, gardening should be in my blood, right? I tried to plant a garden when I was a teenager. I planted some seeds from little paper packets purchased at a local dollar store. I tilled the small plot of land and closely followed the instructions for how far apart to space each plant. I was amazed when, in a week or two, life sprouted out of the ground. Who knew it could be so easy? Unfortunately, we ended up moving away from that house to another one before the plants fully matured. I tried to transport a few to the new location, but aside from some bean plants, nothing really matured or survived.

My Basil

My previous attempt at gardening was more of an accident than a planned attempt at gardening. I happened to find myself stuck in Wal-Mart for an hour after I survived my first flat tire while driving (it wasn't nearly as bad as the movies would have you believe-my tire just sort of deflated as I was driving. It was full of air one second and flat the next. But, I digress...). What does one do while stranded at Wal-Mart for an hour?  WANDER! I made my way to the "gardening" section and made a not-well-planned-decision to purchase a window box, some potting soil, and some seeds. I went home and planted the seeds, and not much came of it. It was a little late in the season for planting, and my sprout-lings were not getting enough sun light.

My Cantaloupe fruit!!!

This year I started early. I bought a few planters, used the rest of the seeds from last year and bought a basil and a cantaloupe plant that were already growing quite nicely. So far, I've enjoyed cooking some things with my basil and parsley. I planted some giant spinach that I really didn't know what to do with, so I did nothing. My tomatoes never came up and neither did my spring onions. But of my successes I do have a big, beautiful basil plant, a watermelon plant, a cantaloupe plant with my first little fruit, and my parsley.  I guess I will just have to say that I have yellow thumbs-green thumbs in training.