Gardening Is Scary. Who knew?

Last night we had ourselves a planning meeting! Instead of a Round Table like King Arthur's Knights, we had a comfy, red couch. We planned like we were about to take Bunker Hill instead of planting a garden. Am I scaring you yet?

We looked up plans because sadly I am not creative enough yet to design my own garden. I think I'll need to have a few more successful seasons before I go renegade. What do you all think?
Our main goal is to have a high yield. We want to have a lot to eat during the season and have some left over to can (Suzy will be leading that task force). And I'm going to admit something to you... I somewhat plan around my husband's cooking. I know that he can make this yummy roasted butternut squash with stuffed pork, a to die for salsa, and I may not want to even get started on his eggplant parmesan. Not scary right?

We are even going to try some Tom Thumb peas. They are real life peas just teeny tiny. Not scary at all. We missed the season last year and want to be a little brave. I'm thinking of just doing it in a pot on my deck. Then I want to do some snow peas in the big garden.

So the girls are talking business and the gentlemen are talking about who knows what at the end of the couch and Jason says, "You all scare me when you talk garden stuff." We looked perplexed. "Whenever you talk dirt and seeds, it means I'm building something or shelling out money." Well, we were shocked. We aren't scary types... although I have been thinking of a little ole project with new garden boxes...

All Geeked Out And No Where To Go

"One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides." ~W.E. Johns, The Passing Show

So this is us. Novice Gardeners Extraordinaire. We are gardening in a townhouse community so we have very limited backyards. We knew we wouldn't be able to grow enough of what we wanted all by ourselves so we banded together to make our own community garden. We are all great friends who have found ourselves sharing laughter, sorrow, laughter and a common goal.

Me (Amy), Barry, and daughter, Sophia





Mandy and Tim







Suzy and Jaxon



One of our neighbors, a non-gardening being (Fawzi you know who you are), said last Saturday, "Oh man! I'm surrounded by geeks." And he was! We were all supposed to be together to watch the fight and all us girls could do was talk gardening. We are all so excited to get started. We probably should get started but something is happening to me that happens every year. I start researching, and reading blogs, and reading books (which Suzy found a great one this year, Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces by Gayla Trail) and then I get overwhelmed. I want our garden to be great beyond great, something that people will tell stories about, that they will want to put in their book, that they will pay money to visit. Ok, ok, I know I'm having a Field of Dreams moment, a "Build it and they will come" moment but really I do want a great garden that is successful and feeds 3 families.

We did ok last year. Mandy and Suzy grew awesome tomatoes. Suzy had some great zucchini and squash and I did ok with our green beans and carrots (I don't want to talk about my cucumbers).

Those girls grew some Mega tomatoes! We had so much that we canned. I use "we" loosely as Mandy and Suzy did most of the work.

So our plan this year is to stick to crops that we will can. Our goal is to grow food that we can not only eat in season but also help us get through the winter. It is looking like tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, peas, and maybe some squash. I've also thought of doing some container strawberries and butternut squash.
Stay tuned as we try to stay simple with maybe a little branching out. Let's just hope there are no voices out there amidst the tomatoes. Who knows what we'll be inspired to do.