Average Jane™: Average Jane Begins Her Gardening

I took the day off from work yesterday and, after fortifying myself with coffee and a breakfast sandwich from Mildred's, set about getting the things I needed to work on my flower and vegetable gardens.

This was one of those times when it was helpful to have a smart phone. I looked up the website for Planters and was pleased to learn that they open at 7:00 a.m. each day. I wasn't far away, so I headed there and started choosing plants for my vegetable garden.

I selected several varieties of tomato, bell and jalapeño peppers, eggplant, cilantro, rosemary and marjoram. I also picked up a flat of safari red marigolds and seed packets for green beans, zucchini, lettuce, spinach and sugar snap peas.

After I'd dropped off that load of purchases, I went to Lowe's for cypress mulch, a new trowel, work gloves and potting soil. While I was there, I picked up a couple of hosta plants to fill in around the oak tree in our back yard, two small pots of ground cover for a bed that's looking a little sparse, and a cucumber plant for my vegetable garden.

It was a bit challenging to fit it all in my car:

As you can see from the photo, it wasn't exactly sunny yesterday. In fact, it was rather chilly and the guy at Planters suggested that I wait a week before transplanting the vegetables. That, and the fact that it looked like it could rain at any moment, caused me to decide to begin my gardening at home.

First on the agenda was the restoration of my herb garden. It had been several years since I last planted anything there, but the chives and one oregano(?) plant were still volunteering. I dug up and weeded the bed, planted my new herbs around the more established plants, then mulched around them.

The next bed was to be given over to the elephant ear bulbs I'd stored for the winter, with marigold plants for accents. Eight of the elephant ears seemed to have survived nicely, one was questionable and one had obviously rotted. I thought that was pretty good for my first overwintering experience.

Once again I dug up all the weeds, did my planting and mulched.

It will look a lot more impressive in a couple of months, but at least it's tidy.

I also planted my new hostas and the ground cover went in a back yard flower bed with some of the elephant ear bulbs. I'll be filling in that bed with some of my extra marigolds today.

Because it's still cool and cloudy outside, I'm planning on limiting my vegetable garden planting to just seeds today. I'm keeping the plants outside, but I'll give them a break on the transplanting until it warms up again. Once I find the motivation to get dressed, eat breakfast and drink coffee, I'll load up my tools and seeds, head over to the community garden and get things going.

I love long weekends.