Gardening at Night

I'm gardening, but not at night. I just happen to like the song. It is the time of year to start thinking about what I want to plant in my garden, though. When I first broached the idea of starting a garden with my husband four years ago, he wasn't exactly thrilled with my suggestion. He said, "Fine, but it belongs to you and the kids. I don't want to mess with it." So the kiddos and I started with this space:


Guess what happened? My husband loved the garden and added this area the next year:


So now we have a larger garden than I ever imagined, and we really enjoy it. I never thought that I would actually like having a garden, but it is completely relaxing and rewarding to walk through the space and harvest what we have grown. I have even learned how to use a tiller and have a not-so-lovely scar behind my left knee from a run-in with the apparatus last summer.

We have enjoyed some notable successes- green beans, lima beans, and tomatoes; some big failures- very thin carrots that never grew more than two inches long and lettuce that closely resembled clover; battled a mole that bit our corn off at the base; chased squirrels who swiped our pumpkins and watermelons; and tolerated some so-so producers that I am not sure about trying again, like peas and okra.

I'm getting a bit bored with the garden, though, and want to switch things up this year. Earlier today I dug out my favorite gardening book (Yes, I know it's a children's book, but that is about my gardening comfort level) for some inspiration.


After perusing Green Thumbs, perhaps we'll try a bean tent. Car Guy would love that. I would also like to grow some herbs that I could use when cooking. I would really, really love to devote part of the space to a flower garden so I could keep cut flowers in the house all summer long. Our lilies look great, but they make a huge mess if I bring them in the house.

Please let me know if you have any great gardening ideas or tricks. We could use some inspiration over here.