Garden Time!

Springtime planting is an exciting time. I love walking through the rows of plants, trying to imagine how they'd look on my patio. This time is always full of possibility; things could bloom! Things could grow! Of course, the reality is that some years they go well and some years they don't, but in the planting stage, anything is possible.

So, you pick out the brightly colored flowers and embrace the dream of what might be. Pack up the back of the car, haul things up to the patio and start playing in the dirt. Most of the time, I get the starter plants, but this year I thought I'd get brave and try planting a couple things from seeds.

Last year my morning glories gave me bunches of seeds, so I saved a few to try again. And, on the top row of my wall planter, historically I've done strawberries but they don't really produce well in my planters, so this year I decided to try some cucumbers from seeds.

Normally, I'll get a cherry tomato plant for my corner planter, but this year Townshend got a full-sized tomato seedling from preschool, so I thought we'd give that a chance. Also, during their gardening unit in preschool, Townshend came home all excited about building a butterfly-friendly garden. So, I put in dill and parsley for the caterpillars (well, I actually got double dill just in case the caterpillars came and ate it all up again), and threw in some marigolds, 'cuz apparently it's good food for grown-up butterflies too.

This year I'm attempting to go without the crazy-colored child-proof fence (we'll see how Moon does with that). And, I also added some garden art - some of my own, and some from preschool. I also added some pinwheels on the top row to scare off any curious birds from my seeds.

All in all, it's a very promising set up. The night I planted, a soft drenching rain came through and so I'm hoping that it gave the plants a good soak (vs. washing away my seeds) and they will relax into their planters and bloom and make my deck lovely!

And, the beautiful thing is, at this point... anything can happen!