Learning to flex

My grand ideas for growing vegetables at home came very close to never becoming any kind of reality.  After reading, researching, taking notes and making plans for months, I walked outside in January with a shovel and a game plan.  Because I'm the kind of person who generally likes to bite off way more than I can chew, I really was trying not to go overboard for our first season.   I was combining ideas from Mel Bartholomew's "Square Foot Gardening," lasagna gardening, and "Starter Vegetable Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans for Small Organic Gardens" by Barbara Pleasant.  I had every intention of ripping out small sections of our brand-new bermuda sod while it was still mostly dormant, and laying out the beginnings of an edible back-yard wonderland.

And I quickly realized that the sun wasn't shining where I was going to start our garden.  And it was barely after noon.  No where in the backyard were we getting the minimum 6 hours of sunlight.  The phrase "my heart sank" comes to mind, but isn't quite dramatic enough to describe my sadness and disappointment.  I was completely crushed. And 8 months pregnant, which made it even worse.  Some good friends reminded me that the sun would fall differently in the spring, and that the crazy baby-making hormones might be affecting my judgment and magnifying my emotions.  

So I took a deep breath and started coming up with a Plan B. 

Solution #1
The front yard!  It gets plenty of sunshine, but there are several things to consider.  It's small, sloping, visible to neighborhood, and has problematic soil.  Raised beds are not an option.  In the long run, I'm still holding out for an edible front yard (I highly recommend the book "The Edible Front Yard" by Ivette Soler by the way) with revitalized soil, revamped landscaping and delicious flowerbeds.  But in the short term, I've thrown myself into container gardening.  I'm learning a lot.

Solution #2
The community garden.  This just makes me smile.  We have a beautiful community garden about one mile from our home, and my church reserved 3 plots this year.  For the fruits and vegetables I truly don't have room for yet, this has been the perfect solution.  The kids and I planted sets of 1015Y Texas Sweet Onions and garlic in January, and most recently a watermelon plant.  Having a 2-month old means I can't get over there very much to dig around and plant.  But this is the stage of life we're in!  We'll just do what we can.