Our own little garden paradise, right outside our door.

By Su Reid-St. John

My husband and I have always taken a rather lackadaisical approach to our garden. We’d plant a few tomatoes, a bit of rosemary, maybe some okra, then pretty much let them fend for themselves. Our harvests, unsurprisingly, were as mediocre as our caretaking.

This is a “before” shot of our side yard — uninspired at best.

But this past winter we began wondering what sort of message this was sending to our 6-year-old daughter, Zoe. Shouldn’t we be teaching her that growing our own food is worth a bit of time and effort? So this year we vowed to make a change and turn our side yard into a real, productive vegetable garden. Why our side yard? Not only does it get a lot of sun, but, more importantly, it’s right next to the driveway. Translation: It’s hard to ignore.

Here’s what we wanted to accomplish and how we made it happen, bit by bit, over the course of a couple of months. All of the materials used in the makeover are available at your local home improvement store, so feel free to steal and tweak these ideas to make them your own.

A couple coats of black paint completely changed the look of our new “trellis”.

Open up the space. Our side yard is a small one, so the first step was to take down (and recycle) most of the metal fence separating the side and back yards. Sensing an opportunity for some creative repurposing, we left one section up to serve as a trellis for cucumbers and melons. To give it a more polished, less industrial look, we painted it black.

Improve the growing areas. Our soil’s okay, but I was eager to see just what kind of harvest we could produce with “new” soil. Plus, we’ve got chipmunks who love to tunnel up through the soil and nibble our veggies. The solution to both challenges: build a collection of raised beds.

Good luck getting through this, all you pesky chipmunks!

The frames for the beds were super-simple, made of 2” by 10” boards secured with screws at the corners. We had a total of five built: two 4’ x 8’ beds, two 4’ x 4’ beds, and a 1’ x 11’ bed to run along the fence trellis. To foil the chipmunks, we stapled ¼” hardware cloth to the bottom of each, and to keep weeds at bay we laid down several layers of newspaper atop the cleared soil beneath each bed. Finally, we filled the boxes with a nutrient-rich mix of potting soil and composted manure.

Add containers. Five beds is a lot of planting space! But with my veggie and herb to-get list growing as quickly as the weeds around our compost bin, we decided to also add several large containers – a mix of steel tubs and plastic pots – for extra growing room. To keep them close to the water source (since containers tend to dry out faster than in-ground plots), we grouped them in a friendly cluster on the side of the beds closest to the house.

We filled our beds and containers with all the veggies and herbs we love best.

Plant a bit of everything we love. In past years, we’ve frequented farmers’ markets to bring home all the veggies our family adores. No more! We made a list of our favorites that includes black cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes for sauce, pickling cucumbers, lettuces of all kinds, cantaloupe, red bell peppers, Swiss chard…it’s a long list. Over the past couple of months, we’ve planted nearly all of it — creating, in essence, a farmers’ market in our own yard.

Make watering easier. I must confess, however, that neither my husband nor I has the patience to keep such a sizeable garden sufficiently watered throughout the hot Alabama summer. So we came up with a solution: soaker hoses.

Putting a soaker hose in each bed will save water by delivering moisture right where it’s needed.

Now before you start thinking, “that’s too complicated for me,” hear me out. Once the beds were planted, all we had to do was wind a soaker hose around the plants in each box, peg the hose down with landscaping pins, and connect it to the spigot via a regular hose. Voila – irrigation! Next, we covered the soil in all of the beds and pots with wheat straw mulch to help keep all that precious water from evaporating too quickly. To make things even easier, we attached a timer to the spigot and hoses so we don’t even need to remember to turn on the water. As a finishing touch, we added a rain barrel to catch all the previously-wasted water that gushes out of the downspout when it rains.

Cover up the ugly patches. We still had to contend with a couple areas of bare ground, one where we’d grown okra last year and the other a mound of barely-covered roots from a long-gone maple tree. We tilled the ground, mixed in some compost, and planted some pollinator-friendly plants like pineapple sage, bee balm, and dill, then mulched with pine bark to add a bit of visual contrast to the lighter-hued wheat straw in the rest of the garden. Next, we covered the root mound with a layer of soil and planted some phlox, a creeping perennial flower that thrives in shallow soil.

We love farmers’ markets, but we’ll soon have all the veggies and herbs we need right here.

Done! Now, not only does our garden-filled side yard look lush and fertile, but putting so much work into it has made all of us – including Zoe — feel much more invested in our plants. Now when I get home, the first thing I do is head for the garden to investigate what’s growing, what’s flowering, and what’s ready to be devoured. Often, passing neighbors will stop by for a chat and leave with a basket of lettuce or some strawberries. Our side yard doesn’t just look better, but it’s become a source of fellowship (and food) for both us and our friends. Now that’s what I call a makeover!

Who says compost bins have to be fancy? Our is made out of pickets, 2 x 2s, and hardware cloth.

By Susannah Felts

I grew up in a family of composters. For as long as I can remember, my mom has tossed eggshells, coffee grounds and filters, fruit peels, and other organic matter into a small white bag kept in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. When the bag is full, the contents get contributed to their (fairly massive) compost pile.

If you’re new to composting, it’s really very simple. What many gardeners refer to as “black gold” is a mixture of vegetable waste, yard waste (like leaves and garden leftovers), and even stuff like paper and cardboard, all of which breaks down together and eventually creates this nutrient-rich miracle-mix that, when mixed with soil, helps plants be their very best.

As I added a load of fresh compost from my folks’ bin to the garden a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but wonder (yet again) why we weren’t making our own. This time, I spoke up.

Turns out a half-built compost bin makes an excellent time-out spot for naughty stuffed bunnies.

“We could totally make a compost bin,” I told my husband Todd, stoking the DIY flame that I know is there, deep within him. “It would be really cheap.” I showed him a handout I’d picked up at a gardening workshop in which the instructor had suggested using super-cheap fence pickets or even wood pallets, which you can sometimes scavenge for free. Todd was convinced.

So on an early spring day, while my daughter Thalia and I worked on her vegetable garden, Todd was over in another corner of the yard, hard at work assembling our compost bin. Here’s how he did it:

First, he cut six 8-foot pickets in half. Next, he cut an 8-foot 2 x 2 into four 2-foot sections to serve as vertical corner posts, then screwed the picket pieces to them to form a sort of open box. Two more 8-foot 2 x 2s were cut in half and assembled to form the lid, which rested upon right-angle brackets screwed to the top pickets. As a final (and, from what I gathered, least enjoyable) step, Todd stapled hardware cloth (a kind of metal mesh) over the lid and sides of the bin.

Todd and Thalia show off our garden’s newest best friend.

Finally, we had our compost bin! Into it went the small remaining pile of my parents’ compost, to get it off to a good start. Since then, we’ve added a lot of kitchen and yard scraps of our own, turning the pile every few days, and have been pleasantly surprised at how quickly everything breaks down. And to Thalia’s delight, we’ve already seen plenty of plump worms in the pile, doing their thing to help spin those coffee grounds into black gold.

Got some old windows laying around? Make a quick and easy cold frame!

By Renee Adam

In my house, we don’t throw away anything we can either recycle or reuse – and this has led to our repurposing many items for use in our vegetable garden.

What could be more natural than giving trees and rocks new life in the garden? Notice my stepping stone on the right side of the photo.

It all started with some trees. When we moved into our cottage home several years ago, we discovered a number of cedar trees that had fallen down around our new property. We had decided to build some raised beds to house herbs and veggies, and instead of buying new lumber, my husband went around collecting those beautiful cedar trunks. Not only did we save a lot of money, but the natural odd shape of the beds and the raw state of the trees were the perfect combination to complement the charm and character of our new home.

One of the beds we built turned out to be a bit larger than I’d expected, and I knew I would have difficulty reaching whatever we ended up planting in the middle of it. So we found a large stone in the woods and added it as a “hopping stone” to allow me to reach the center without having to step on any plants. As a bonus, it also added to the aesthetic appeal of the bed.

Mr. Frog, a much loved but outgrown toy belonging to my daughters, now stands guard in the garden. Can you spot him in the back left corner?

Not all of the items we’ve repurposed have originated with Mother Nature. Over the years, trinkets that my daughters have loved have made their way down to the beds, too. There are cute little toy mushrooms, broken but still beloved teapots, play gardening tools the girls no longer use – all serve as delightful finishing touches to our garden.

On a grander scale, in the upcoming months we are planning to renovate our home. The changes will include replacing all of the beautifully weathered 12” pine boards on the exterior that have taken quite a beating over the years from the direct southern sun. We have great plans for those boards! Some will be used to build a new fence that will surround a larger family vegetable garden closer to the kitchen, while others will be used to create new raised beds, a kitchen island, and some bookshelves. The remaining will be bartered with our wonderful neighbor, who just happens to be an amazing carpenter.

Left behind by our home’s previous owners, this plastic owl now spends his days keeping birds away from our tomatoes.

As you can guess, that’s our family project this summer. I’m looking forward to witnessing the creation of all of these items that will bring us joy while also serving as reminder that just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s not any good. So think about some of your favorite things. Are there any old benches that could hold a row of pots or serve as an outdoor seat so you can sip a cup of tea on your gardening break? Spare windows that could be joined to form a greenhouse for those nippy nights once the weather turns cool again? Perhaps a rusted wheelbarrow that could serve as a mobile lettuce planter? There are so many ways to bring new life to old treasures!

She obviously loves to pick lettuce. But how do I get her to love eating it?

By Susannah Felts

While it’s been a cool, slow growing season so far, our buttercrunch lettuce, planted back in late March, looked ready for picking this week. With each head bursting full of bright, soft green leaves, I could hardly wait to dig in — but wondered how to get my 4-year-old daughter Thalia equally on-board.

I began by pointing out the pretty lettuces to her: “Don’t they look delicious?” I asked. She nodded, suggesting a pliant attitude that I knew better than to swallow whole. “This is what bunnies eat!” I continued, tearing a lettuce leaf off, nibbling some, and giving her the rest. She took a tiny bite, then handed it back to me. So much for bunnies.

Two key ingredients for coaxing kids to eat healthy: turn the meal into a DIY project and add a bumble bee plate.

Time for Plan B: lettuce wraps for dinner. One reason I love them – and hoped Thalia would feel the same – is that you make ‘em yourself and can put pretty much anything you want inside. I settled on some kid-friendly fillings: pre-cooked chili-lime chicken strips, shredded Mexican-blend cheese, sweet red pepper, cilantro from the garden, black beans and corn, and chicken salad. Then I asked Thalia for help, as I’ve found that getting her involved in fun ways to prep for a healthy meal makes it much more likely that she’ll actually eat the meal.

I told Thalia she could use the big knife to help me chop the chicken into littler pieces – with my close supervision, of course — and she was all over that (Big, serious knife? Chopping? Oh yeah!). I also asked her to put the shredded cheese in a small bowl while I chopped the pepper and cilantro. While we worked, I explained how to make lettuce wraps.

“You mean I get to choose what I want on my wrap and put the things on?” she asked enthusiastically.

I nodded, setting the wrap components and a plate full of freshly washed lettuce leaves on the table between us. Then I showed her how to add the fillings she wanted and fold the lettuce around them, kind of like a miniature soft taco. She was particularly excited about the pepper – “because I looooove sweet red pepper!” – and quickly made her own wrap. And took a big bite. And was happy.

This tasty lettuce wrap isn’t long for this world.

“Success!” I thought, but tried to play it cool. “It’s good, right?” I said.

“Yeah!” she replied as she polished off the last of that wrap and immediately began to make another.

I mean, you’d think this kid had been a big fan of lettuce all along. She devoured several wraps (as did I)…and then we went out for ice cream. ‘Cause I’ll admit, there’s another benefit to dining on lettuce wraps: They tend to be low-fat, leaving plenty of calorie latitude for dessert. (Or so I tell myself, at any rate.)

Now, I’m not so sure that the arugula we’re also growing will go over this smoothly, but we shall see.

Could it be that tomato and basil go together even better than, say, peanut butter and jelly?

By Michael Gesling

Well folks, it’s that time of year again: spring! Sure, some of you may have been gardening for most of your lives and have it figured out. But for the vast majority of us, every season is an adventure in learning about growing food. Take me, for example. Though I work as a Bonnie Plants sales rep based in Rhoadesville, Virginia and am also a longtime gardener, it wasn’t until relatively recently that I discovered “companion planting” – the idea that certain plant varieties grow better when placed near other specific varieties. Here’s what happened.

A few years ago, in an attempt to make better use of my time and available water resources, I wised up and invested in a drip watering system and timer. The emitters on my ready-made drip tubing were spaced in nine-inch intervals, but the tomatoes I was planting required 18 inches between them. I laid out my drip system and turned it on for about five minute, long enough to leave visible wet spots. Then, I went back and placed my tomato plants at every other wet spot in the row. This provided perfect spacing and direct watering to the plants — great. But what about the other drip spots between the tomato plants?

Growing basil alongside your tomatoes may just yield you a bigger crop than you expect.

After doing some research, I came across some articles on “companion planting” tomatoes with basil. Now, like virtually anyone else who likes to cook, I can attest to the brilliance of this pairing after harvesting. But I had never considered forming the same combination during the growing season. These articles suggested that if I were to place these two varieties close together, the plants would share nutrients under the soil surface, the tomatoes would have enhanced flavor (since flavor comes from the soil), and the aroma from the basil would help confuse insects seeking tomatoes to eat. That made sense to me, so I planted a basil plant in each unused wet spot in my tomato row.

The results astounded me! From just the 10 heirloom tomato plants in that row, I was able to harvest approximately 200 pounds of the best tasting tomatoes I could remember growing. In addition, each of the nine basil plants grew to about four feet tall.

This particular companion planting pair has worked extremely well for me ever since – so well, in fact, that I’ve continued to look for other great pairings. My next adventure: planting sage with my bush beans, as sage reportedly deters many bean parasites.

Michael Gesling

So take it from me: When you grab your Bonnie tomato plants, don’t forget the basil!

This is what happens when you ignore the spacing guidelines that come with your plants – chaos!

Some say the best lessons are taught by our failures — and when it comes to gardening, I would have to agree. Season to season, I not only learn from the mistakes I make in my garden, but also share this knowledge with my three daughters so they won’t have to repeat them when they get old enough to start growing their own. Here are three of my most recent, ahem, learning opportunities:

The goof: I didn’t follow instructions.
Plant tags are crammed with important information like how far apart to space the plants and how much sunlight they need. Sure, I read the tags, but sometimes I end up deciding that I know better. Big mistake. Take, for example, my strawberry bed. I bought a whole bunch of pink begonias to go around the beds. The tag said to space them 24 inches apart, but  I remember thinking that there was no way these tiny flowers would need that much space. Ha! Was I ever wrong (as you can see from the photo above). I ended up having to actually dig up some of the flowers and move them so the berries would have enough room to grow.
The lesson: Trust the information on the tags.

My sunny, productive garden before the willow began to grow.

My not-so-enthusiastic after the willow shot up– where did the sun go?

The lesson: When choosing a location for anything you want to plant, consider not only the position of nearby trees and other shade-providers (like your house), but also how much taller those trees might grow in coming years.

Renee Adam

Susannah and Thalia do what many gardeners do when the weather isn’t cooperating: use their green thumbs to turn some pages.

By Susannah Felts

A few mornings ago, we woke up to see an unwelcome surprise outside the window. “Is that snow?” Thalia asked me. “Why is it snowing if it’s spring?” Oh, to see a child’s blossoming ability for logic confounded by the irrationalities of the natural world!

“That’s a good question,” I muttered.

The white stuff was just the latest weather-related road block to our gardening ambitions. So to keep Thalia’s enthusiasm stoked until Mother Nature decides to quit messing with our expectations and allows spring to truly arrive, we’ve been spending a lot of time cuddling on the couch, reading some wonderful garden-themed books for kids. Here are four of our favorites:

Water, Weed, and Wait
written by Edith Hope Fine and Angela Halpin, illustrated by Colleen M. Madden
We’ve read this book countless times. In it, the kids at Pepper Lane Elementary reclaim a vacant lot near their school and plant several raised beds with flowers and veggies. But the big snag, as the kids see it, is the grouch next door, Mr. Barkley. As it turns out, though, Barkley knows his gardening—and when the kids’ teacher, the ebullient Miss Marigold, ropes him into helping with the project, he shows a softer side. This book is a great way to give young readers a sense of the basic necessities of gardening (hence the title), plus there are some handy resources and tips at the end for parents.

Secrets of the Garden: Food Chains and the Food Web in Our Backyard
written by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld, illustrated by Priscilla Lamont
The story of one family’s garden, complete with chickens whose poop is contributed to the compost, this book is chock-full of useful and interesting details for little gardeners, with a broad message about how all creatures are connected in a garden’s ecosystem. “In our garden home,” the young narrator reflects, “we make way for the neighbors — for the rabbits, birds, spiders, and beetles. It is their summer home, too.”

Thalia is almost as enthusiastic about reading about gardening as she is about doing it.

Jam & Honey
written by Melita Morales, illustrated by Laura J. Bryant
While it’s not about gardening per se, this book is a lovely way to help kids conquer their fear of bees. The story is simple: While picking berries, a little girl encounters a bee among the bushes — but soon realizes that she shouldn’t be scared. The story, written in sweetly sing-songy rhyme, is told in two parts: first from the girl’s point of view, and then from the bee’s, which shows readers that the bee is as alarmed by the girl as she is by it. In the end, the girl goes home and enjoys bread with jam and honey.

Ready for Pumpkins
written and illustrated by Kate Duke )
We got this book around Halloween, but it’s great for reading right now, as it shows young readers how pumpkins get their start in the spring and grow through the summer. The “gardener” in this tale is a first-grade classroom’s guinea pig named Hercules, who spends summer vacation at the teacher’s parents’ farm – and learns to do a little growing for himself.

An out-of-this world chef salad I enjoyed at a restaurant inspired me to plant lettuce like this so I could recreate the dish in my own kitchen.

by Carolyn Binder

Carolyn Binder

I admire people who plan weekly menus, complete with the lists of ingredients they need to pick up at the grocery store. I have tried to do this, but I either lose the list or the store doesn’t have what I need. Even if it does, it nearly always costs more than I anticipate.

So once the growing season gets underway, I take a different approach: I shop my garden. All of the veggies and herbs I need for a delicious meal are right there, allowing me to harvest dinner faster than I could possibly jockey through the frazzled shoppers picking over produce at the grocery store. As for what I cook, well, that depends on what’s ripe.

See, my springtime dreams tend to be filled with riveting adventures in cooking and gardening. Since I love playing in the kitchen as much as I love playing in the dirt, what I grow is inspired by delicious food I’ve tasted or wanted to taste – dishes I’ve discovered while leafing through cookbooks on a chilly afternoon, dining at great restaurants on occasional forays into the Big City, or just reminiscing about what I loved to eat when I was a kid.

A mouthwatering recipe from my past is the reason I’m growing strawberries this year.

A magazine feature about grilled figs stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in prosciutto may have me fantasizing about planting a fig tree. A childhood memory of dipping perfectly ripe strawberries into sour cream and brown sugar directs my musings toward a strawberry patch. The rockstar chef’s salad recipe I stumble upon – a masterpiece of buttery lettuce dressed in lemony-thyme vinaigrette — spurs me to begin sketching out ruffled beds of Red Sails, arugula, and romaine alongside a bodacious herb garden. After all, rockstar chefs aren’t the only ones who can serve seasonal baby vegetables and fruits!

So while dreaming about your spring garden, dream about dining too, and plant the ingredients you need to make the dishes you love. What you put in the ground this spring can reward you with everything from spicy pickled okra to sparkling jars of ruby red jam, to crispy lettuce for the best Caesar salad you’ve ever tasted. Here’s one of my favorite recipes to get you started – it’s my main reason for planting oodles of romaine!

Dreamy Caesar Salad Dressing

1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
5 anchovies
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon Grey Poupon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 egg (pasteurized)
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese (or try goat cheese!)

Place all ingredients in the blender and pulse for about 10 seconds. Add more Parmesan cheese if necessary to thicken. Toss with lots of crispy romaine lettuce and serve.

For more on gardening and cooking from the garden, visit Carolyn’s blog, Cowlick Cottage Farm.

My 4-year-old daughter Thalia has plans for her vegetable garden. BIG plans!

by Susannah Felts

Susannah and Thalia

It’s getting to be that time of year again – planting season! – and I don’t know about you, but we are so ready. Recently, Dad, Todd (my husband), and I worked together to build us a second raised bed, which my daughter Thalia immediately dubbed “Thalia’s Vegetable Garden.” This new bed now sits adjacent to the one we installed a couple years back, harboring a layer of newspaper to suffocate the “grass” (aka weeds) within and awaiting a six-inch layer of soil and compost – not to mention some plants!

Obviously, it was time for Thalia and I to figure out just what we wanted to grow, so we sat down to browse the Bonnie website one night. It was after dinner, but as soon as Thalia saw all the mouthwatering pictures she said, “All these plants are making me hungry!”

Which, of course, I’ll take as a very good sign.

Not that she was salivating over stuff like Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi. We’d already talked a lot about growing strawberries, so she immediately wanted to add those to our list. The Icebox watermelon, a small variety that’s easily stored in the fridge, caught her eye, so I read her the description. That made the cut, too. After that she asked me to read the accompanying text for each plant we considered. It turned out to be a reading lesson and a garden-strategy session. Score!

This compact plant will soon find a welcoming home in Thalia’s Vegetable Garden.

Silver Queen corn and a pumpkin also made the list, as did a few varieties of cherry tomatoes. (She likes to eat the small, sweet ones whole. Atta gal!) I exercised my parental authority and suggested — okay, demanded — that we add a cucumber and some basil, thyme, dill, cilantro, and grapefruit mint to the list. Herbs strike me as very kid-friendly: They’re easy to pick, attract butterflies, provide lots of sensory stimulation, and hopefully over time will get Thalia used to enjoying a wide range of flavors. (Granted, not all of this will fit in that raised bed – but we’ll find space.)

Now if this were my garden, it would be filled with leafy greens. But this is Thalia’s garden, so it’s her choice (mostly) – and I’m okay with that.

I’m hoping the experience proves to be a lesson in patience and perseverance, as pumpkins and watermelons are especially slow-growing and won’t give us the goods for many months. We’ll see if she remains interested in those plants. But for now, she’s enraptured, and so am I. Let the planting begin!

My mother’s gorgeous summer vegetable garden shows signs of a seriously green thumb.

by Susannah Felts

Friday is my 4-year-old daughter Thalia’s favorite time of the week, hands-down. It’s what I think of as her “nature camp” day, which she usually spends at my parents’ farm some 20 minutes from our home in Nashville, Tennessee. There, she sows seeds, waters, picks flowers and berries, feeds chickens, gathers eggs, hobnobs with goats, and sifts potting mix through her little fingers. And gets very, very dirty. She’s a lucky kid.

Ours is a family of plant lovers and avid gardeners, with “avid” being a sort of gross understatement. My folks have gifted me with a deep passion and respect for the magic and cyclical pleasures of nature—not to mention the gallons of blueberries, tomatoes, squash, herbs, and more that we haul home from regular visits to their place every spring and summer.

I’d like to tell you that I inherited that kind of double-strength green thumb, but so far, I’m pretty sure more plants have perished than thrived under my care. Still, I keep trying, and my enthusiasm for growing things only, well, grows. Each spring I observe the progress of my mom’s vegetable garden, its bounty so much more robust than that of my own garden, and she feeds me advice (along with cuttings, tools, and truckloads of my dad’s homemade compost). In the past, though, I haven’t always been the best at following it.

“Pinch ‘em back!” Mom says, invoking one of the first tips she herself heard from a seasoned gardener decades ago. That is, don’t ever be afraid to cut, or prune, your plants. The more you do, the more they’ll happily send out new growth.

She’s cautioned me to stay on top of weeding, to get those interlopers out of the ground when they’re still tiny, since they only become harder to deal with down the road. She’s told me to think about a plant’s water needs and how I might meet them before I commit to growing it. After all, it’s seriously hot here in the summertime – and really, who wants to drag around a hose when it’s 95 degrees and 100 percent humidity outside? (Not I.)

And last year, she told me how it’s helpful to snip the “suckers”– those little shoots that form in the crooks between the plant’s branches and stalk — off tomato plants so more energy will go to forming the fruit.

More than any other piece of advice, though, Mom has hammered home that gardening is trial and error, and that skill comes from the accumulation of years and years of patient experimentation and on-the-job training.

My daughter Thalia loves to spend time with me in the garden. Together, we’re going to make this our best veggie garden ever!

Well this year, I’m vowing to finally embrace Mom’s words of wisdom and (forgive the pun) turn over a new leaf in my vegetable garden. I will be more daring when wielding my pruning scissors. I will install an easier-to-access hose (and maybe even a drip-line) that will keep my plants from getting so parched. I will begin monitoring for both weeds and “suckers” from the start, pulling and snipping at first sighting. And above all, I will allow myself more trial – and more error.

Happily, I now have an eager partner in Thalia—who appears to be a natural-born little gardener in the making. Any doubts I had about that vanished just this afternoon, as she smashed a trowel against the mud pile she’d made with her watering can. “I love gardening, Mama!” she said.

Me too, Thalia. Me too.