Spring Gardening
The Little Gardener
Like most toddlers, TLE loves to be outdoors. So much so that she’s spent the last month or so looking longingly outside, pointing outdoors and indicating that she wanted out. But alas, the weather has been horrific for the past month or so, raining steadily since about the beginning of February.
Happily for her, it looks like the last vestiges of what passes for winter around here. The sun has been out for a few days now and today it has warmed to the high 70s. We bought her a sandbox as an early birthday present and she absolutely loves it. She’s so happy to be able to run around in her backyard and play in her sand box.
It is beautiful enough to coax an avowed indoor geek like me to try my hand at gardening. So far, I’ve got the tools and materials for what I hope could eventually be a nice little garden. However, I know absolutely jack about what I am doing. (Garden n00blet FTL!) I decided to try to start some plants from seed. For one, it is cheaper than buying plants and two, I haven’t yet laid out my lasagna bed. Ooops. The plan is to start the seedlings and then transfer the plants once the bed is ready.
Grandiose plans and delusions of adequacy aside, I’ve been rediscovering what fun it is to pack dirt away in little cups. 
I bought a kit of herb garden seeds to start in little cups. Here they are at Day 0, just after I planted them.
Basil, dill, oregano
Chives, sage, parsley
Not much to look at, I know. It is Day 2 now and I don’t see anything yet. Hrm. Patience is NOT one of my virtues. I am just fervently hoping that I haven’t killed them yet!
Not to be left out, I also bought a Sesame Street Gardening Kit for TLE which came with a bunch of plastic tools, peat pots and seeds. TLE preferred digging in the dirt than filling cups with it but I did manage to get her to not only to fill her little pots but also got her to poke a seed into each! Huzzah! So these little buggers are hers — gardening at the age of 2, isn’t that awesome?
TLE's watermelon seedlings
I will be sure to update this blog as the days progress. Am hoping that I’ll have something more to show for these efforts than just a few pots with dirt in them.
How does our garden grow?
Spring has sprung. The weather right now is gorgeous with the sun shining brightly. Our jungle of a backyard has been mowed down and carted away, leaving us with a huge expanse of dirt. Since we really don’t have the money to landscape the way I’d like to, I figure it is either now or never for me to put in my starter garden. It probably won’t be pretty but oh well.
I made a wish list of things I want in my garden, mostly herbs and veggies that aren’t readily available to us and/or are something we eat quite a lot of.
So here’s my wish list of what I hope to put in:
Herbs
- Saw leaf herb
- Asian mint
- Thai basil
- Thai bird chiles
- Shungiku
- Red lettuce
- Sweet basil
- Dill
- Chives
Veggies
- Tomatoes
- Daikon
- Asian cucumbers
Fruits
- Strawberries
- Plum tree
- Cherry tree
- Meyer lemon tree
- Kalamansi (Filipino lemon) tree
Looking over the list, I know I’m being waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over confident for my first gardening attempt. For starters, I have NO idea how much room each of those herbs would take and how much work will go into it. I’ll probably cut it down to the bare essentials (bird chiles and tomatoes are definite keepers) rather than being overly ambitious. As for the fruits, I probably won’t go for those unless my dad makes good on his promise to plant the trees himself 
I do hope for a cherry tree, though. We’ve got a lot of u-pick farms in the area but having our very own cherry tree would be so lovely and cheaper than buying. I’ve been known to eat POUNDS of cherry by myself when in season.
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Text and photographs copyrighted by Michelle N unless otherwise noted.