If there is one thing I’ve made a focus in my life, it’s doing things I truly enjoy, because life really is short. For me, gardening is one of those things. It’s good to get your hands dirty, and it’s rewarding. Thanks to my parentals for this value.

I posted several times about my garden last year, in part because it was the most fruitful one I’d ever had. I planted extra tomato plants to ensure I’d have a decent yield, and by summer’s end I was giving away tomatoes left and right because all plants survived and thrived. Some of the plants did so well, they got to be about 7ft tall which meant Seth and I were out there almost weekly staking and re-staking. We vowed to have a different method this year, and to plant fewer plants (or I told Seth I would do things differently this year). Hee hee. Right.

I planted the same amount of tomato plants this year, 2 zucchini squash and 2 peppers. Then I said, uh oh! I haven’t even planted herbs or cucumbers (or anything else I might want to try?? I may or may not have a habit of going to a garden center and buying all sorts of stuff that “will be fun to see if I can grow this!” Thanks Mom.). So, my awesome hubs built me another raised bed, and a new deep herb planter box to sit in the raised bed perimeter, since nothing grows in that limestone unless you have an ice pick to dig with-except for this, my 2 1/2 year old out of control oregano bush: Soon, we won’t have to mow, because our entire backyard will be varying degrees of gardens. Yay for urban gardening.

Before planting anything this year, we enriched the soil with organic blood meal, manure, worm castings, and chicken poo (FYI, dogs love to try to eat this when you look away). We’re in the process of cleaning out all the weeds in our raised bed that runs the perimeter of our yard-which is super ugly and annoying, but not urgent. I was pulling some of the weeds last week so we could put the herb planter box in its place, and the silver lining to these weeds?? LADYBUGS! They’re everywhere. I was thrilled. So, I relocated a few to my veggie plants, and they’re still there!!!!!! YAY! 🙂

It is in the mid-90’s today in San Diego, which the veggies are soaking up (I’m personally not a fan). Of the veggies I have planted so far, less than 2 weeks ago, they’ve already grown about 1 1/2 feet. I have more to plant, so I’ll be making a trip to the garden center this weekend. We’ll see what I find.

Oh, and Seth found some awesome rocks, we’ll do something fun with.