Last week we took a quick trip over to our local Home Depot, and there we picked up one large, and three medium sized pots, two bags of organic potting soils, and several starter plants. I had every intention of starting our garden this year from seeds, but since we felt that were getting such a late start, and the varieties available to us were those we had already intended on planting this year...why not. So this year we bought a total of seven starters, of which there are three tomato plants (Roma, Yellow Pear, and Beefsteak), three pepper plants (Sweet Red and Yellow Bells and an Anaheim Chili), two Burpless Hybrid cucumbers, and a Black Beauty zucchini squash.
Retuning home from the store, I was extremely eager to get started planting our garden. However, before I could get started my father-in-law (who we are temporarily living with) stopped me and offered the use of one of his planters. He mentioned that he too had ever intention of planting a garden this year, but life just managed to get in the way. He also added that while clearing out the backyard, we had come across a couple back of compost, which we were welcomed to use. So without hesitation, I gathered up a couple shovels and a steel rake, and began turning the soil. Our daughter helped to supervise my work. Once I had dug down about two feet, I layered in the bags of potting soil and compost, and then turning the soil once more to blend. I really liked the way the soil looked afterwards.
Once I finished with preparing the soil, it was finally time to plant our starters. Our daughter, full of excitement, helped plant every single plant. With each plant the process was we used our hand-shovel and dug a small hole, pulled the tag from the plastic pot, pulled out the starter, messaged the roots a little, placed the plant into the hole, and backfilled the hole. It was a blast planting our garden with our daughter. I do think that she enjoyed, even more than planting, watering the new plants. Although she still isn't quite clear on the concept of keeping the water where the plants need it, still a heck of a lot of fun for all.Several days later, while at work, a co-worker of mine brought in several trays of starters she had, but could not use this year. What great luck! So, as you might imagine, arriving home with more plants just made our daughter smile. We planted two Pole Bean plants, and a Poblano Chili plant. So far everything seems to be taking. I think the other day, I even noticed some flower buds developing on our tomato plants. Fun, fun, fun!
