Spring Gardening

It finally feels like spring is here to stay! I've been taking advantage of the warmer weather to work outside...digging out some weeds, pruning our bushes, and getting the garden ready!

Last year we built a small raised-bed garden for our backyard (check out the step by step instructions to build your own!). We live in a townhouse with a backyard that is mostly hill, so garden space is pretty limited. Last year's super hot and dry summer gave our garden quite a beating (it gets afternoon sun from about noon until 7:30 in the middle of summer!). I really should have thought about it when we placed the garden, but for now we'll just hope that it isn't quite as extreme this year.

I have had good success with Jiffy peat pods for starting my garden the last several years. Obviously, you don't have to use something like this, but I found it especially helpful for having my daughter help this year.

I went a little crazy last year and tried to do waaaaay too many plants (like 80!), so this year I kept it way more simple. This windowsill greenhouse was perfect for us. Add water to the peat pods...

and watch them grow!

We added seeds once the peat pods were fully wet. We are only doing tomatoes and zucchini right now.

And since we might add some more later this month, I only did half the pods this time.

We stuck it on the windowsill and waited...

(and watched)

Our tomato seedlings are starting to grow!

And our zucchini are already out in the bed and looking great!

 

We had a nice surprise too...lettuce from last year is coming up too! I am really happy about this because last year's lettuce was too bitter to eat, probably because it was so dry. This lettuce tastes great, so hopefully we'll be able to have some fresh salads with it.

Are you planting anything this year?