Topic of the day: Gardening-Vegetables

I love to garden. I really do. I have fond memories of "helping" in the garden when I was a little girl. It takes a bit of adjustment to garden in North Texas, but I seem to be getting the hang of it this year. So, in addition to blogging, making jewelry, and searching the web for a job I've been spending a lot of time in the garden. I have both flower beds as well as vegetable beds. Because this part of Texas has a lot of clay we decided to make raised beds for vegetables. We built 3 4'x4' beds that are 12" deep. Then we got good quality soil to put in them. I have to admit the first 2 seasons I was somewhat less than successful, but I learned a bit each time. This year has been the best yet. We have harvested Brussels sprouts in the spring, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, peppers,squash and zucchini. We also put in a strawberry bed a last spring and this past spring we harvested TONS of strawberries. You know the container you buy them in at the store? The one that is labeled 1 lb? We filled about 20 of those! (yes, I save containers, plastic bottles, milk jugs,,,, etc) I even save the cell packs that flowers come in at the nursery to use later. A couple of Christmases ago my husband, Anthony, bought me a small greenhouse. It is about 2.5 feet wide and 2 feet deep, and has a plastic cover that fits over it with a zipper door in the front. It is fantastic. I started tomato seeds, pepper seeds, and multiple varieties of perennial flower seeds this spring. They have done really well. I ordered tomato seeds in both regular and cherry types but the variety is specifically designed to be grown in the south, in the heat. They have done really well. Right now they are putting on blooms again for a new round. Anthony and I have indulged in BLTs for the past 3 weeks with all the tomatoes we have picked. BTW,,, its really good to add avocado to your BLT. mmmmmm, yummy! I have yellow bell pepper plants with about 9 peppers on them, okra about to bloom, and squash and zucchini coming. I also planted pole beans and the plants have completely covered the bamboo poles! I have cucumbers coming up as well as cantaloupe and garlic. I just pulled the corn up and tied them into bundles to dry out to use for our fall decorations. The corn we got was good but didn't produce very many ears. I may try a different variety next year and space them out more. I was really pleased with the potatoes. We planted 2 kinds, Reddale, which have red skins, and Russet. I put in 1 lb of seed potatoes and harvested 17 lbs of Reddale and 15 lbs of Russet. The have tasted really good.

All in all the garden is looking much better this year. Tomorrow I will tell you all about the flower beds.