Saturday, May 2, 2009

Our first garden!


I am really excited about our new garden that we planted over the weekend! I never thought I would ever grow a garden, because I do not have a green thumb and did not enjoy helping my mom with her garden when I was growing up :)

Having a garden was really never a possibility in San Diego because we didn't have a back yard. Also, the boys were too young anyway. I think half the fun in having a garden is the enjoyment kids get from helping to water the plants and witnessing the fruits of our labor!

After getting some advice from a few of my neighbors that have grown gardens in the past, we head to Home's (the Japanese Home Depot here) to get all of our garden essentials. We have opted this year to grow everything in large pots or barrels instead of digging up the backyard. I am hoping that is sufficient for plant growth :)

Of course, there is always the language barrier when shopping out in town and garden shopping was no different. Just as I was finishing up in the garden area, a woman that was with her husband and child, noticed I was having a communication problem with an employee. (I was asking her if I had picked up the right pots for my tomato plants ).

God must have been looking down on me today b/c this woman was SO KIND and SO HELPFUL and spoke great English!! How great is that?? Not only did she help me pick up the right pots and barrels for my gardening but she also helped me pick up the right plants. Apparently, I had picked up Del Monte vegetable plants, not Japanese plants. Del Monte will produce English vegetable, not Japanese, like we have been enjoying here...
She was wondering if I had intended to pick up Del Monte or if I wanted to grow Japanese vegetables in my garden.

Of course I wanted Japanese vegetables, especially the cucumbers!! They are the best!! But all the plant labels were in Japanese, so I had to pick my plants according to the pictures that were provided :) Obviously, I picked incorrectly!

After graciously thanking the woman that helped me tremendously at the garden center, we had a quick lunch at the Japanese McDonald's at the store. Fried shrimp burger anyone?? (I haven't tried but Tim says it is quite good).

Later that afternoon, we got out our gardening gloves and shovels and began planting! It didn't take us too long and before we knew, we had a pretty good garden in our backyard.
I watered that immediately and prayed to the garden gods that our plants will grow!



*Funny follow-up story*
I was reading a book called "You Grow Girl" last night before I went to bed. The last chapter I read was specifically about tomato plants and various bugs/animals that can attack them. I didn't think that reading about slugs and snails attacking tomato plants would affect me that much, but I didn't sleep very well last night! Some of my dreams through the course night were about slugs/snails attacking my very own garden!! How weird and funny is that?

No comments:

Post a Comment