Garden Envy

I stopped by my friend Andrea's the other day; she was canning and I wanted to check out her setup and how the process works for her. I think the more I see how other people can, the easier it might become (I can learn tricks and tips from them!). Since I was there, I checked out her garden. And that's when I experienced my first ever bout of garden envy.

Her garden was so pretty! It gives me so many ideas for my garden next year--I'm already mentally planning it out.

Here's a few things I'm going to add to my garden.

1. We tried garlic this spring, but apparently you are supposed to plant that in the fall. So I have plans to plant that this fall.

2. I will add onions, carrots, beets, brussel sprouts, and herbs: lavender, basil, oregano, chives, lemongrass?...

3. I probably won't do okra again. I'm not sure how to cook them, and they are sort of tall and blocked water to the peas when I used the sprinkler.

4. Put up a more permanent fence. The rabbits got my cabbage and broccoli at the beginning of the season. Got the fence up just in time, but I've tripped over it (no gate!) one too many times.

5. Do more bell peppers. We have A LOT of habanero and jalapeño peppers.

6. Do one or two cherry tomato plants. I usually do tomato plants in big pots, but we moved this year and I thought I'd try a year without tomatoes. But I miss the small cherry tomatoes. Bummer. Until next year.

7. Buy my seeds from seedsavers, plants from larsens or Opportunity Village.

8. The lettuce strips work really well. Almost too well.

9. Plant herbs in the garden in clusters. Trim them if necessary.

10. Plant leafy greens (kale, arugula, etc) by scattering the seeds in a cluster (We always try to start them from seed inside but never do a good job caring for them).

11. Plant things closer together next year. Our garden was so small when we lived in town and we always planted WAY too much (hello overcrowding). Now we have so much space that I think we spaced things out too much. I want to try arranging things in a more creative way.

Can't wait to try this all next year!