Some long-time readers may remember that about 2 years ago, I decided to plant a garden and chronicle it on the blog. And it failed. In a major way. As in… everything died.

Well, last year, I decided to try again (or, really Nick did). Since I was expecting it to be another epic failure, I didn’t bother blogging about it. But it turned out to be a success! We grew tomatoes, peppers and herbs and they all produced quite a bit… especially the tomatoes, mint and basil.

Since we now have a big yard that’s all our own, Nick decided to put in a HUGE garden! He started by building six 4×8 foot planters. Then we filled them with dirt. A lot of dirt. That we had to move from the driveway to the back yard. That was the really fun part.

Next we planted!

We started with already-sprouted plants. In the first planter, we planted 5 kinds of tomatoes. Better Boys, Lemon Boys, Black Cherry, Juilet Grape and Jelly Bean Grape. We had really good luck with grape tomatoes last year and already the Juliet Grapes are the strongest of the bunch!

The next one is full of peppers! Orange and red bell peppers, jalapenos and hot banana peppers. There is also a zucchini and a straightneck squash (yellow squash) on the end.

Planter 3 is full of lettuce and herbs.

Bibb and red leaf lettuces, plus 2 basil plants, lemon basil, sage, chives and green onions. I think the lemon basil might be dying, but everything else is good so far!

I planted mint in a separate pot. We planted it last year and it took over the whole garden like a weed, so I didn’t want to put it in a planter! I also picked up 2 rosemary plants and some dill seeds yesterday, so I’ll put those in soon.

After the plants were planted, we decided to try our hands at some seeds. We filled one planter with okra and green bean seeds, and they are already beginning to sprout.

Another planter has cucumbers and eggplant, and the last one has butternut squash and watermelons.

I’m excited to see how everything grows here– it’s a huge agricultural area, so they’ve gotta have good soil! And looking forward to cooking with LOTS of fresh veggies and herbs. Hopefully this goes better than my first gardening attempt and I’ll have good news to report in the coming weeks and months. 🙂

To be continued…