Garden Time

Having lived in the desert (Las Vegas and St. George) for the better part of the last 15 years, where the climate was anything but conducive to growing anything, and now that I'm back in the beautiful Salt Lake valley, it's time to see if I can rediscover my green thumb. Today, my wonderful son is working very hard getting rid of all the nasty weeds, dead grass, and cutting down a bunch of paradise trees that have taken root in the designated garden area, and getting the ground ready for turning and mulching. It's just a small area between a cement driveway and a fence (great for staking tomatoes and other climbers) and equipped with a sprinkler/soaker system. There are several areas in the yard that were previously devoted to flowers that will be turned to growing veggie and flowers this year, but this area really needed the most work as it was sadly neglected for the past 3 years. It will be wonderful to go out and pick fresh salad goodies like lettuce, peas, beans tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers this summer.

It's a beautiful sunny day today, even though it's still only 45 degrees and, well, there is still snow covering the northern patch of ground - which is also a wonderful place to plant shade loving flowers and plants. This might not look like much yet, but if you had seen it before you would be very impressed. The weeds were about 5 feet high and there were about 8 paradise trees in there too. I thought the trees were great (not knowing that they were trash trees) until my neighbor pointed out that fact. So a big thanks to my son for all his hard work. Anyway, the work has begun. If my gardening hero, Gina, (check out her fabulous blog at In the Great State of Utah - Container Gardening at http://gardeningspot.blogspot.com/) can grow lots of vegetables, ground covers and flowers on her 3rd floor balcony and even discovered by the Martha Stewart's show for her accomplishments, then I should be able to do something with my little patch of dirt.