Taking the Plunge into Gardening

Yesterday the guys and I took the plunge into gardening. A small plunge, but a plunge nun the less. Ok, in all honesty this isn’t the first time I’ve tried to start a garden, but I do think it’s my best and most noteworthy attempt.

Now I know I mentioned buying plants from the farmers market, but I didn’t think I’d be going to the market on Saturday and I wanted to get started this weekend so I bought mine at a local nursery (the Prickly Pear in Orland CA) about 1 1/2 miles from my house on Friday. I think the most important thing about buying plants is to get them from local growers as opposed to a chain hardware store. I think you’ll be less likely to find chemicals being prayed on the plants if you go with a nursery. This is purely just my opinion , so you should ask to be sure. But I digress.

The woman at the nursery was very nice and extremely helpful. Not to mention patient, what with my endless questions about exactly how to plant strawberries in a strawberry jar (fill the pot until you reach the first level of pockets, put the strawberries in and repeat, leaving about 4-5 inches at the top for watering), what to plant with them, because you can put plants at the top of the jar as well (lavender, herbs, veggies whatever you want, really) and what else would work in those pockets (anything that drapes or isn’t very big like succulents). With all she that she told me I could easily start 4-5 jars right now. Todd, being the practical one, thought it would be best to start with one and then go from there. Fine. We got one jar with 9 pockets, 12 strawberry plants, a peppermint plant, 6 spinach and 6 red lettuce plants. Also they only sell organic soil, which I think is pretty awesome.

The plan was to double up 3 of the pockets so we would have 6 pockets with 1 strawberry plant and 3 with 2 strawberry plants and put the peppermint, spinach and lettuce on top. As we started filling the jar stuffing 2 strawberries into 1 pocket seemed less likely. Instead we put the extra 3 on top with the peppermint plant and put the spinach and lettuce in their own pot. I think they turned out quite well in the end.

If you’re like me and are nervous about starting a garden but at the same time would really like to have one, I think jars and pots are a good way to go. Planting in them is a lot easier than digging up the ground and if it turns out the spot you picked doesn’t get the right amount of light, you can pick the jar up and move it.

In the end what really made this so great was that we did it together as a family.

All together now, Ahhh