The garden is planted, small as it may be. I decided that I was being overly ambitious for my first garden, especially in a new place, so for this summer, the garden is limited to the strip along the south side of the house, below my bedroom window. The soil is dry and rocky there, so on Sunday, I mixed in a full bag each of compost and potting soil and watered it thoroughly. Then it rained Sunday night and all day yesterday, so it seemed to be in good condition for planting. Today, the plants went into the ground: a chocolate cherry tomato, a sweet red bell pepper, two sugar snap peas and four broccoli. The other two sugar snap peas reside in a pot in my kitchen window, accompanied by lemon thyme, catnip, and lavender.
That's the fun part of gardening. The not-fun part is the dandelions that have sprung up all over my yard. I could weed for days and days, plunging the forked metal into the soil, breaking the root, and yanking the plant out, but it seems to barely make a dent. Perhaps when the weather turns to hot and dry, the weeds will go away. In the meantime, weeding seems like a good way to unwind after work each day.
All attempts to thwart the squirrel from raiding the bird feeder were unsuccessful, and once I realized that she's a momma (and decent entertainment for the cat as well), I gave in, bought two feeders for the birds, and squirrel food for her. As long as everyone stays out of the garden, peace will prevail around here.
