Planning Our Spring 2010 Garden

We have just a tiny veggie garden space in a nice, sunny corner of the back yard. It's time to start planning what we'll grow this year. We've decided to plant only one tomato plant and only one or two chile pepper plants and plant lots of herbs.

The Love Of My Life has already said I'm not allowed to plant sunflowers in our little veggie garden space this year :) I know they're not really food plants for us, but they're like crack for the bees. And yes, they do reach 5, 6, 7 feet in height and start falling over and shading out everything else in the garden, but hey, they attract bees and birds, right? Okay, so I guess I'll plant some sunflowers in our front flowerbed instead.

If we plant tomatoes and/or chile peppers we'll have to devise some sort of protective cage around the plants to keep out the birds, squirrels, or whatever vermin stole all the fruits of our labor last year. It was like we were operating an all-you-can-eat buffet for all the wildlife in the area, and they were inviting all their friends! If I'm going to go to the expense and trouble to buy the plants, fertilize the plants, and water the plants, I want to harvest some of the peppers and tomatoes too!!! Seems pretty fair to me :)

We've had wonderful success with parsley, basil, cilantro, and oregano. We had such good results with parsley, basil, and cilantro growing from seed last year that I think we'll sow seed for those three this year and not bother with buying plants. I'd love to get some really strong rosemary plants going. I need to find some of the hardy ones that can make it through the couple of days or couple of weeks of cold we get here in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Shouldn't be too tough.

We're in Zone 8, so if anyone has any recommendations of easy-to-grow veggies or herbs, let me know. I love this time of year. It's warm enough that I can feel the promise of spring coming soon ... but not so warm that I have to move my sorry, lazy self from the couch and actually go outside to tidy up the patio and the yard and prep the garden. Life is good ... sigh ...