I Love Spring!

Today is the first day of spring. I love spring; it is definitely my favorite season. The weather starts to warm up (I do not enjoy being cold as everyone who has ever met me can tell you) and the days stay light longer (means I can keep the lights off even longer).

The start of spring also means the start of gardens. We made a small attempt at gardening at our old house and I really wanted to do more this year. The problem I was running into this year was that we rent our house, have dogs and lots of deer, so I wasn’t really sure how to make it work.

I thought about doing containers but they’d have to be tall enough that the dogs couldn’t “water” them. Containers that size are not cheap so I wasn’t really excited about going that route.

I had talked about this with my Grandma and she told me that she would happily share her two raised bed gardens with me to plant in. This sounded great to me and I knew Dylan & Tyler would enjoy a real garden as well.

So today we went up to visit my Grandparents and my Grandma said that she had just read that this is the perfect weekend, since it’s started warming up, to get the soil ready for planting.

She said that we needed to turn the soil and add fertilizer and that in two weeks we could start planting. Aside from the fact that neither Todd nor I were dressed for gardening, this sounded like a plan.



So out we went to get the gardens ready for planting.



I was really happy that boys wanted to help out. I’m really hoping that by growing our own vegetables the boys will be more likely to try them. Tyler looks at me like I’m crazy when I say that, but hey, I can dream.



Grandma and I decided that next Saturday we’ll go to a local nursery (they’re rumored to have heirloom tomatoes) and pick out our veggies.

We’re starting with lettuce, carrots and tomatoes and then later in April we’ll add peas and strawberries.

I’m actually really glad that we’ll be doing the garden at my Grandparents house because it means getting some great tips and hopefully it will also mean that the garden has a better chance of surviving. My heart may be green, but my thumb, not so much.

The thing is, there's no better way to know where your food comes from or how it's grown then to grow it yourself. Plus, you can't get much more local then your own backyard, or your Grandparents as the case may be.



I’m hoping that this will be the start of a great new tradition and I cannot wait to get planting!

Do you have a garden, what do you grow? Are you starting one this year, what do you plan on growing?

Do you have any tips for me, I’d love to hear what worked, and didn’t work, for you!