Gardening Baby Steps

Way back when, when we lived in the country, my ex-husband had huge gardens. As in easily larger than our present backyard for the main garden and several specialty plots - one for strawberries, one for potatoes/onions, etc. I'm not a dig-in-the-dirt kind of girl, but I loved going out and picking the fresh produce for dinner and freezing what we couldn't use right away for winter. I've missed that. Unfortunately our current backyard is 95% shade. There are 1 or 2 spots that might, might, get more than 4 hours of sun, but not a big enough spot to grow a whole lot. Plus, the location is rather inconvenient - one is about 2 feet away from the fence gate! I've thought about container gardening in pots, which could be easily moved when mowing, to a more sunny spot if I find one, etc., but haven't really done anything about it. Until now.

This past weekend was our annual Mother-Daughter banquet at church, and the theme was on servanthood. As in the past, a number of ladies did centerpieces for the tables which were then auctioned to help cover the cost of the food for the banquet. This year, the centerpieces were to be things from the kitchen. (I did a basket full of quick breads.) I usually bid on one or two that I like but have never won before. But this year I did, and I won an edible salad bowl. It has several different lettuces in it. You snip off the leaves, leaving about 2" behind, and keep reharvesting. It may seem silly, but I'm so excited! haha I have it elevated on one of our old grills until determine if any critter is going to try to make his own salad. :-) Once I determine it's safe, I will probably put it elsewhere.

Now that I think we have put most of the 30-degree nights behind us (hey, I live in Ohio after all - we could still have 30-degree lows in June!), it's probably safe to proceed with the rest of my container plans. The grill that is holding the salad bowl now will be turned into a small patch of mint. Mint grows and spreads like crazy, so it needs a contained spot. I love it in ice water and iced tea and am looking forward to trying it on a few desserts. I also want to do a pizza pot. One tomato plant and some basil and oregano in the same pot. We have a kettle grill that we no longer use that I'm thinking about for that, but I need to make sure it's deep enough. Otherwise I'll just use one of the gardening pots in the basement.

Maybe someday I'll live somewhere that I can have a larger garden and be able to eat fresh veggies and put some up for fall and winter, but for now this is a start. Hopefully it will be a successful one!