Spring is here!!

One of the things I was most excited about when we bought this house was the size of the backyard. Perfect for gardening! It's also one of the things that I haven't been able to do in a couple years. Two years ago I was pregnant and throwing up too much to plant and last year I had a colicky baby. This year, however, I am back and better than ever! This was our first year planting in our raised garden bed (purchased at least 2, if not 3, years ago but never having been planted in.) Rosemary chose most of the veggies and herbs that went into her garden and I planted a bunch more in containers. I am so excited about our potential crop this year!

Here's Rosemary smoothing the soil (I bought a prepared mix, hopefully it'll work out! Choosing the right soil was the hardest part!).

One the soil was pretty much distributed evenly, she raked it to make sure it was as smooth as possible.

This is the look she has been giving me most of the time lately. She i 4 going on 14. Oi vey. We have our hands full with this one.

Still looking like she's too cool for this whole gardening thing. Don't let that sassy little face fool you. This girl is a gardening fool. She's digging the hole for the very first plant...

Rosemary planting rosemary!!!

Altogether, we planted broccoli, chocolate mint, rosemary, catnip, a pink girl tomato, cucumbers, and a red bell pepper in Rosemary's garden.

In the containers we have a Black Prince Russian heirloom tomato (I tried this a few year ago and it disappeared overnight. I think it was the year I had the hornworm problem. I'm hoping to buy a mesh or something this year to protect my tomatoes), basil, thyme, dill, cherry tomatoes and habanero peppers and in the ground we have some marigolds and a citronella plant (let's hope this wards off mosquitos!). We still need to mulch, but I'm not sure what's best to use. I'll go back tomorrow and pick something up.

It was also time to spruce up the front. We enjoyed collards and cabbages this winter but it was time to replace them with Spring flowers (and leftover broccoli that didn't fit in the back). This was our last cabbage (okay, it was the only cabbage that actually grew). I roasted it with kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, fennel, and olive oil and dipped it in balsamic vinegar- YUM!). And my own little Cabbage Patch Kid to display it!

And here are our new flowers- zinnias, petunias, and vincas. The broccoli is in there, but very small. I'm excited to see what this look like in another month! The collards and cabbages were even smaller but ended up HUGE! And in past years we had good luck with vinca. I'm especially excited about my purple petunias! If we ever have another girl, I think I like the name Petunia as an option.

We planted lot of marigolds (I didn't take pictures of the others we planted in the back because they really don't look that great yet. They are just sticking out of weed fabric and need mulch!) Rosemary fell in love with this one and wanted to keep it. She carried it around for a couple hours until finally agreeing that this pot was the perfect home for her new friend. After planting, she helped me water all of our new plants. Then she said goodbye to her new marigold friend and told it "It was nice to meet you!"

The coolest part of today's gardening adventures was when I came back in the house and found the entire family peeking under this chair. They picked some catnip and were testing it out. Romeo isn't the biggest fan of catnip, but it was still fun!

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