Gardening Adventures

Lou Erickson once said "Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration."

As a recent graduate from the school of gardening, this quote couldn't be more true. Until recently, I never realized how challenging and time consuming maintaining our outdoor space was. And, as it turns out, I have discovered that I have quite the green thumb. In my "Gardening Adventures" posts, follow my journey as I transform my yard into a much more beautiful space.

My gardening lessons began out of necessity this year. I've had to take on the challenging role of "the family gardener," and it has been quite the job. Having the mastered keeping the grass cut and fertilized last summer, my first challenge was presented after we removed out pool: Growing New Grass. Last summer when a storm blew through, we simply bought some sod to replace a large area of grass. This summer sod was not in the budget, so grass seed it was. I assumed this would be a piece of cake: buy some grass seed, put it down, watch it grow. Wrong. After putting the grass seed down, the birds quickly ate at most of it and weeds quickly filled my newly laid topsoil. I had to spend 2 weekends weeding the area and laying Patchmaster. I learned that this had to be watered twice a day for about 2 months now for beautiful grass to fill in. (I'm also still weeding it weekly.)

Our vegetable garden was my next backyard challenge, which resulted in a 50% success. I began by planting tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and green beans. My tomato plants and green pepper plants flourished - there have been many stir-frys and tomato salads for dinner! However my cucumber plants and green beans didn't fare as well. The cucumbers fell victim to garden rabbits who promptly dug them up after I had planted them. My green bean plants were producing tons of green beans, enough for several dinners, until my dog Snickers ate the beans from the plant. in the process she had chewed the plant down so badly, it died. Lesson learned: place all plants in cages to protect from backyard pests!

Stay tuned for more of my Gardening Adventures!