A Random Act of Green-ness

A few Fridays ago was Earth Day.  I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try to live a little "greener" as they say.  Last year I tried to garden from seeds and that just didn't work at all.  Apparently I do have enough of a green thumb to get the seeds to sprout, but that was about it.  So this year I figured I'd start with plants and see how that works.  In addition to plants making the world a better place by creating oxygen and all that, I am thinking I can help my own "green" by spending less at the grocery store and growing my own veggies!

I am going to try to container garden - where you grow plants in pots or other containers, rather in a bed.  I am doing this for two reasons: one - the dogs seem to care less about digging in pots than they do in the flower beds, and two - I'm not sure how well the plants will tolerate the HOT heat of Texas, so I might have to relocate them in the yard and that will work much better with containers.  I know the little cards that come with the plants say "shade" or "full sun" but I tend to think that the plants don't always like full, hot, hot, hot Texas sun. 

For all you wanna-be gardeners like me out there, Home Depot has had their vegetable and herb plants on sale, buy 2 get 1 free.  I picked up two "patio" tomato plants (good for container growing, the label says), two strawberry plants, a red bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, and a couple of cucumber plants.  I don't really like cucumbers but have always wanted to make my own pickles.  Weird? I also grabbed some herbs like mint, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, dill, lavender, and a few others.  The brand they sell, Bonnie Plants, is awesome because it also happens to utilize biodegradable containers made out of recycled paper.  You can just stick the plant in the ground as-is, so no pesky trans-planting needed and no trash!  How green is that?  I also grabbed a bag of Miracle Gro organic potting soil and some organic plant food.  Normally I'm not as concerned about "organic" as I probably should be, but if I'm eating it, I don't want it covered in chemicals.

So far, the cucumbers are growing like weeds and have several yellow flowers popping up.  The tomatoes are doing well, too, and I think some are almost ripe.  The cilantro and parsley do not like the direct, hot sun so I'll need to relocate them.  The herbs seem to do better being kept constantly moist, rather than allowing them to dry out in between waterings.  If they start to get too dry, they all start wilting.  It's been a learning curve, but so far, so good.

I'm really looking forward to being able to walk outside and get fresh herbs and the goods for fresh salsa, fruit salad and pickles right from my backyard this summer.