The Little Garden that could...

If I were to attribute a color to my thumb that would describe how good I am or knowledgeable I am at growing things, it would probably be BLACK.

I have no knowledge of gardening, whatsoever. But, I set out on a mission this year. My mission is simple. Or at least I thought it would be.

Mint

 

Grow something to eat. My only stipulation to this mission is that the something that I eat actually has to be something I would want to eat, not like a dandelion. Those are edible, but no one wants to eat them. At least not normal people. Maybe if you are from Boulder? I digress.

Garlic

SO far my adventure in planting edible things has gone surprisingly well! However, I don't want to get to excited and have everything die tomorrow. It has been a very mild winter here, so I have been able to plant some things early.

My current garden list is as follows:
Broccoli
Snow Peas
Rainbow Chard (which I've never even eaten from the grocery store, so we will see....)
Mint
Garlic
Spinach

Spinach

Now that I actually look at the list, it seems king of impressive. Here is my gardening list for the rest of the summer:
Butternut squash
Zucchini
Tomatoes: big ones, cherry and Roma
Onions (which I desperately need to get in the ground!)

Snow Peas

The purpose of this gardening mission is to see my food go from seed to plant to table. Call me crazy, but I think that's important to know how to do, and it concerns me that so many people have no idea how certain foods get on their plate, let alone how they grow.

Brocolli

I dont expect everything I grow to actually succeed, but to me its more about the process. I expected this whole thing to be a monstrous failure, to be honest. And it still very well could be. So far everything is looking good, and it's wonderful to see things grow. If only one particular item I plant does well I hope it is the tomatoes this summer. We go through a lot of tomato products every week, and being able to can some would save us a great deal of money. Recently, in the middle of our "winter", I was able to find several 12 count boxes of canning jars and lids for only $5 a box. Tomato sauce, paste, marinara, pizza sauce, diced tomatoes....I probably spend about $10 a week just on tomatoes. If I were able to can enough for even just 6 months, that would save us at least 250 dollars. subtract the cost of the jars, ziplock bags and seeds, it still saves us at least 225 dollars. I'd say that's worth it, just for tomatoes alone.

Anyways, I'll continue to update on the progress of my gardening adventure :)