Za Garden

Spring has brought an exciting venture at our house -- an organic vegetable garden! We opted to start small, as I'll be soon taking some classes and always adding more weddings to my docket. My better-than-I-ever-thought-possible in-laws gifted it to us as a birthday, early anniversary present, and there couldn't have been something I wanted more. They even found a raised-bed kit that is the same color cedar as our house/ark, since Oklahoma soil isn't growing-friendly.

(Could I stop the excessive hyphenation?!)

The in-laws and husband filling the backyard bed (purchased from Lowe's) with soil:



A close-up view of the bed, before any planting:



While we were prepping the space, Cindi-in-law was on the porch planting seeds in the seedling kit. We found this at Home Depot for $7 -- biodegrable containers and organic soil+plant food. The organic seeds were also purchased there, at a surprisingly cheap rate, too. After only five days, we had 6" plants inside. I'll move them to the garden this evening:


And the singular already-a-plant purchased (just so we'd feel like we had something to show from our work) was this grape tomato plant. I don't know why our faces make it appear that we were having such a difficult time! Blame it on Oklahoma wind!


(Oh, yes, that's brown hair on me, but don't get used to it...)

We are waiting on our Marigolds to come up so that bugs will stay out. As I've been informed by my horticultural expert of a dad, they're a natural insecticide because they smell so bad!

Any words of wisdom to impart on a very "green" gardener? Yes, that has dual meaning. :-)

-- ashley sue, from the phone