My "First" Year of Gardening

I don't count my first year of veggie gardening any more. My first son was born in April 2008, and with having a new baby, being a new house-wife, babysitting a friend's child during the day and attempting to train my horse; the garden was an unmitigated disaster. My eyes where bigger then my skills, I took on too much, let the weeds grow too big and ended up with 1 cucumber, 3 beans, and a bruised ego.

My second year went much better, and thus, in my mind at least, I count it as my first real year of vegetable gardening. I chose a section of yard that had previously been a dog run and in the fall of 2008 I cleaned up any remaining excrement and tackled the gravel/stone-dust head on. In the spring of 2009, and it was not an easy task by any means, I managed to turn over that entire plot by hand and prepare it for vegetables. I planned to simply plant the seeds in rows in the cultivated soil, and it worked well.

I scoured high & low for cheap vegetable seeds, then I carefully laid out my vegetable selections so that they would be easier to weed between. Once May hit (and we had our last frost) I pounced! It was a terrible year for weather, it rained & rained & rained & rained and when it wasn't raining, it was cloudy. We only had a few days of sunshine in 2009. Still, my bounty was modest but in comparison to my "first" year - a success!

Despite being pregnant with our second, and the encumbrance that causes, I faithfully trudged into my garden every day, my one-year-old in tow to tend to the plants, and the garden was good to us. More cucumbers then we could eat, delicious Danver carrots, and lettuce so fresh & sweet I've sworn off store-bought for good. I even managed to grow enough pumpkins in the terrible weather so we had 3 all ready for Halloween.

Now with two little men at my heels I've taken even more time to carefully research my variety options and plan out my spacing. So for my second year of gardening I'm going to be planting:

Organic early jalapeño peppers
Atlantic giant pumpkin (for my husband)
Broom corn
Calypso cucumber
Early dawn cauliflower
Napoli carrot
Utah celery
Red beauty onions
Arugula
Vista watermelon
Lincoln peas
Roma tomatoes
Vegetable spaghetti squash
Rosemary
Small sugar pumpkin
Catnip
Vulcan lettuce
Temptation strawberries
Birdhouse gourds
Socrates peppers
Honey-select corn
Spring garlic
Tay belle squash
Onyx zucchini
Early butternut squash
Indigo radicchio
Vesey mosaic tomato mix (cherry tomatoes)
English lavender
Mint
Oregano
Sage
German winter thyme
Chives
Basil

Already the weather is much warmer, and there is a promise of less rain. I just hope the gardening-gods are on my side this time!