Gardening: The Art of Getting Dirty

I am an amateur gardener and enjoying every minute that I can get my hands dirty! Since I was a kid I helped my mother or my great Aunt Lula in the garden, well, I can't say I really helped, I was probably more of an hindrance but they tolerated me anyway. I was never there out of a great desire to get play in the dirt but more because the yard needed to be done or it was on my chore list. It just wasn't my thing.

At least that was the case until I moved out. Then I started to miss the flowers and foliage. In my first apartment my balcony was cluttered with spider plants and random flowers I would pick up. Then I moved into my first house (duplex) but it was in the shade. No big deal, hostas and inpatients were the order of the day. The lack of sunlight available didn't stop me from trying to plant a rose bush and strawberries. The few strawberries I got were eaten by birds and the rose did its best to stretch to the sunlight. All that work was paid with a few roses every year, one at a time.

Then I moved to Kentucky and out to the country. I have space and light! The first year I went hog wild and tried to plant everything that was affordable and I thought was pretty. There was no planning what so ever. As you might be able to imagine I had some interesting results. For the most part the seeds got too hot (I tried a green house but couldn't keep it moist enough) and wilted, or I picked the wrong plants for the sunlight I had. The one plant that didn't fail were my hostas. You have to love hostas, they always seem to produce beautiful green leaves no matter how you or your dog tries to destroy them.

The second year was better. I understood my sunlight and had a better grasp of layout. I put in 7 clematis, inpatients, petunias, roses, columbines and some other misc. annuals. The end result made me smile. I was on my way to gardening glory. I should mention that I lost two of my roses, through no fault of my own - I know everyone says this but I am telling the truth :) -Willow, a puppy at the time, thought it was good fun to pull the roses out and use them as fetching sticks. Lesson learned, puppy stays away from anything resembling a stick.

This year after some good rain and wonderful sunshine my perennials are doing well and all of the seeds I have started are breaking ground. Most of my clematis' have bloomed profusely, my hostas are up and bigger then ever, my surviving rose is branching out in all directions and the bulbs I planted in the fall added much needed color during the deary start to spring. I can't wait to see what the rest of garden does this year. My co-workers are tired of hearing about each bloom the opened and each seedling that came up. You would think they were my children. :)

I also started a vegetable garden for the first time. This is a true experiment because I have only grown tomatoes in the past, which is a fairly easy plant. This year I have planted potatoes, corn, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, watermelon, pumpkin, cucumber and of course tomatoes. Keep your fingers crossed! I am hoping the results will be edible.