My Very First Harvest

I like to garden. In fact, where flowers and other pretty plants are concerned, I have a pretty green thumb. I've never had much luck with veggies though. I think a lot of that is because I've not given them the love, attention and water they deserved, desired and needed. Growing veggies takes some patience and I'm not really always the patient sort.

My friend, Garden Geek, inspired me this year though. In early Spring, Garden Geek was busy planting seeds in itty bitty pots, making degradable newspaper larger pots to transfer the seedlings to, and then eventually planting decent sized crops of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and peas. Being the competitive sort, I didn't want to be left in the dust on this endeavor. I also didn't want to spend a ton of money on produce either this season, so I decided to give veggies another shot.

Now, I will be honest and say that I didn't go so far as to start my plants from seed. I really don't have a good sunny spot in my house for struggling seedlings to hang out, so I "bought" my plants. I put bought in quotation marks because I got my veggie plants and the potting soil to put in my containers with gift cards I'd been given. So, my out of pocket for this endeavor was basically zero!

Anyway, I ended up getting bell pepper, tomatoes, zucchini and basil for my container garden on the deck. My plants are getting HUGE. I've had a bit of a struggle with the zucchini --- I think it gets too much sun and tends to get wilty in the afternoons and the container dries out pretty quickly --- wilty plant equals wilty veggies I've found.

However, my peppers and tomatoes are rolling along very well, and earlier this week, I harvested my very first homegrown bell peppers! I've heard before that if you grow them yourself, veggies always taste better. Not sure if I'm biased (probably so), but those two peppers were the best peppers I've ever had in my whole life! I sliced them up and took them to work with a smidge of light ranch dressing for my afternoon snack. They were yum!

I'm hoping to yield many many more veggies over the course of the summer. This will help my grocery bill AND help my overall goal of eating healthier. Sounds like a win/win to me!