Intro

Short version: Never had a garden, now have been trying for a few seasons and I'm not real great at it. I will become a good gardener though, and perhaps a home steader??

Medium Version: I'm from Texas. If you are from anywhere else in the country, especially places where everyone gardens, let me clear something up for you, Texans aren't farmers. Yes there are a lot of cows, but they are on billion dollar cattle establishments. Everyone else with cows just has a few for the tax break of having 'agricultural land'.

This isn't exclusively true, but being a small city, central Texas native, that is my experience. We don't go outside (Where did you like to hike as a family when you were young?-- We didn't) So when I moved to Helltopia (a place known to some as utopia, others (me) as hell) in the much-more-North-Than-Texas, I experienced seasons for the first time, the ease in which everyone around me had gardens, sometimes very large ones and the satisfaction of doing so.

Somewhere in between being a hippy (No thank you High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup) and being the opposite (heels, yes, dangly earrings, yes, a full set of make up and painted nails, non-organic yes yes yes) I want to grow my own food and be close- ok, not close but in a relationship with the land.

Long Version: It's important to me that my kids grow up going outside (total kids as of right now: one on the way) and having chores, responsibilities and skills I find useful and cool.

I don't know what it is about me that can get such bad "luck" when it comes to gardening, but I figure everyone has to start somewhere and I'm starting here, where I am, with just a few plants. I can track what I learn on the way and hopefully get advice on everything that goes wrong! I have a lot more wrong going on than right.

While we're at it: About the Garden: We just moved to USDA Zone 9 beginning of March (also found out I was pregnant then, got super sick, not much got done) and we have to garden in containers. We have lettuce, tomatoes, celery leaf, parsley, fennel, crook neck squash and cilantro. Not a lot, none of it is going great. More to come on that as we go!

My other great longing for gardening is that --secretly, no one tell my husband please- I am kind of intrigued by this 'seasons' thing. They are weird and annoying, but I like that there is a busy season and a slow season, it's just cool. Snow is horrible and should be illegal, but living your life with the world is just so neat, while the trees and plants are busy growing, producing, flowering and bees are pollinating and everything is on GO, so are you. Then you stock pile it (can anyone say nesting?) and that is about as attractive a thought to a pregnant quarter-lifer as you can get.