Something a little green

After a week with Robert and Bambu and their amazing garden, Philip and I decided we wanted to grow more plants. Nothing to crazy, just enough greenery to lighten things up.

To keep things simple, I started with herbs for the kitchen. We have several seeds for herbs in the freezer so I went ahead and germinated the cilantro and basil (the herbs we use the most) and potted them on the kitchen window sill in the flower pots I painted last summer. I already have little sprouts peeking up out of the dirt and they have been getting bigger as the day goes on. Friday, I scored four more terracotta pots at the thrift store and I painted them red yesterday and filled with them with dirt and seeds (too impatient to germinate before planing this time) for chives and rosemary.

This weekend we are working with our neighbors to till up the front flower bed, two side beds, and the raised bed in the back. The plan is to fill the front bed with easy-care perennials, plant sunflowers and possibly some swiss chard and Brussels sprouts in the raised bed and whatever we want in each of our side beds. I already transplanted some mint from my dad's house in front of our porch which will be really nice for summer cooking and iced tea. Our neighbors also have an unused trellis that they said we can use. We really liked the clematis that covered Robert and Bambu's house so if we can find some we are going to place the trellis on the side of the porch and let the clematis vines crawl up it. While it probably won't provide us with much privacy in the first year, it should be big enough next summer to make a nice little wall, plus it will make the porch smell amazing.

The tricky part to this gardening adventure is that I want to do it on a budget of $25 (most of which will go toward the plants for the front bed that we are sharing with our neighbors.) So far we have spent about $6 on seeds and used pots. If we stay on budget and actually manage to make things grow we are going to add a garden gnome.