Starting late last year, I had a brilliant idea to start growing some of our own food. In a perfect situation, I would also have my own chickens so we could have fresh eggs as well, but the Hubby vetoed that decision. Anyway, I'll take what I can get and he supports the garden experiment!

So, I went to Dollar General and what did I find?? I found a boat-load of discounted seeds! At the end of last season, they were getting rid of all their seeds for 2008 and selling them for 75% off which means that I was able to outfit my entire garden with seeds for $2 and the seed packets now are at least $1.50 each now. Boo-ya!! Bargain shopper right here!! I love the dollar store, they have some great stuff in there sometimes!

So, as spring time creeped closer, we started going to Lowes to check out how we would do our garden. We weren't interested in tilling up the ground here and planting in ground. The soil is all clay here and sucks unless you want to add a bunch of this 'n that to make it work. Instead, we just decided to make a planting box and create our own soil mixture. But first, I had to sow my seeds! We bought this little system for seed starting, with the Burpee brand name, which I thought would be really awesome. I followed the directions on the package for getting the kit started and added my seeds. This system has a little green house affect going on with it, so it is really cool! Each of the seed packets averaged about a week or two until the seeds would germinate so I planted them with plenty of time before it was time to plant them outside.

Imagine my shock when a lot of my seeds germinated within 2 days. (!!!!!) Oh my gosh!!! I might actually be good at this (or so I thought) but instead, the combination of the green house lid and sitting on top of my dryer for 2 days during a wash-a-thon really excited those seeds and they couldn't wait to meet me.



So then they just grew and grew and I started to get really uptight with the Hubby about there not being a garden box for me to put these amazing seeds I had growing like weeds in my laundry room. They were obviously on steroids and we needed them to get into the ground before I had a full-blown vegetable jungle on my hands!! They just kept growing and growing!!

Finally, the Hubby got started on the box while my seeds continuted to grow out of control. Let me give you a bit of advice at this point. You see this seed starting kit here. It is really awesome, yes it is, but notice how close all the little plants grow on the flat? This becomes a ::real:: PITA during the planting process. The sprouts are all tangled up, you can't get the sprouts and the dirt out without smooshing the sprouts to bits in your hands and none of it wants to cooperate. All the time you spent singing, talking, nurturing and caring for your seeds is all for NOT because the seed container is meant to kill them just at the point where you're planning all the yummy meals you're going to make with all this wholesome harvest. Evil.

You can see here what I planted:
Watermelon
Parsley
Lettuce
Green beans
Broccoli
Corn
Tomato
Sugar Peas
Cantaloupe

I'm happy to report that all of my seeds grew and I was able to plant at least one of each kind of plant in my garden. :) Yipee!
We made our plant box out of cedar and created a dirt mixture of equal parts of top soil, organic compost and manure. Great soil and the box really helps save your back, but to be honest, since I'm almost 6' tall, gardening of any sort still slays me!

So here's the finished product. All planted and ready to go. Usually I kill things so here's hoping that I'm able to change the color of my thumb and grow some great fruits and veg this summer to help cut back on our grocery bill. Now all I have to do is wait and see if it'll grow! Here in Texas, the trick for any plantings is making sure they get enough water, but especially so with new plantings and fragile little seedlings! Looking at my garden now, I'm pretty sure many of my sprouts died in the replanting process, but we'll see! My fingers are crossed. I'll be sure to post pictures of my harvest as it comes in. :)