Gardening for Dummies

I know I know, I have no business what so ever planting a garden. I have proven more than incompetent in the past when it comes to keeping plants alive. In fact, one year I bought a grown tomato plant from Home Depot and I only got one tomato before I killed it.

But this year I have a secret weapon: my friend Amy. She’s got such a green thumb that she actually plants seeds.

I would never dream of it!

One day when we were out at Home Depot buying eye hooks, we decided to peruse the plant section. I ended up with squash, bell pepper, eggplant, watermelon, basil, and mint.

I had been working on the side of the house anyways…and it gets a lot of sun so it’s perfect for plants (or so I’ve been told). I don’t think you’ve ever seen pictures of the side of my house, but the contractors did this weird thing where they didn’t put siding all the way to the ground. It’s hard to explain, but I’ve been trying to hide the foundation with trellises and plants. This spring I planted peonies (my favorite flower) as well as hydrangea and scabiosa at the bottom of the hill near the basement staircase. With the addition of the vegetables/herbs, I decided to mulch the whole area and turn it into a garden bed and lined it with leftover bricks from the patio. Before this gets too wordy, let me show you some pictures.

Can you see the foundation where it meets the siding? Weird right?Pardon the crazy grass, we had to re-grade the hill to level the patio. I’ll have to wait until fall to plant grass, so it’s just a red clay mess for now.

Obviously there’s a lot of growing to be done…but I think it’s a definite improvement over the crab grass and weeds that used to come right up to the house. I have wisteria on the trellis which will hopefully recover from a weed wacking incident with my husband. At least I hope so.