Hooray for Gardening Season!

We finally had our last frost pretty much on schedule during the second week of May.  I timed my last day at the University of Illinois (May 7) to go with the frost date so I could get started on a vegetable garden at our new house.  Robert, hub, offered to make cedar garden boxes for me like he did at our last place, but he's so busy and his 'honey do' list is so long, that I decided I had to be self-sufficient.  I ordered a couple of 4' x 8' kits from CostCo.  They're made out of recycled plastic and wood flour from sustainable sources so no bad chemicals and they were pretty easy to put together .  The hard part for me is filling the boxes with dirt.  And why is it hard?  Because every year early in the spring, I try to do more than my back is able to and I end up in agony for a few weeks.  Notice I said, 'every year.' My psychologist friend (Dr. Smith when she's in that mode) asked me HOW MANY years it would take until I either remembered or was able to control my enthusiasm on behalf of good sense.  SIGH.  I guess I need to put it into Outlook for next year as a reminder. 


So now after a week of on and off bedrest and some help from son Charlie with the second load of dirt for the boxes, it's beginning to look like a real garden.

I ordered seeds and transplants this year from Seed Savers Exchange.  It's a group of gardeners who save and sell seeds as a way of preserving biodiversity, or 'passing along our garden heritage,' as they say.  The plant descriptions say it all.  For example, the description for Early Snowball Cauliflower, says '
Introduced to American gardeners in 1888 by Peter Henderson & Company.'  Pretty cool.