The Idiot Gardener

Huh? Yeah, somehow I've started a vegetable garden. I figured I'd try to do it with as little effort as possible, and be happy if anything green at all came out of the ground, nevermind the vegetables. Since I have little grass in the backyard, I figured a minimal effort try would be just to dig a few holes, throw in a few seeds, and see what happens.

I ended up putting in a little more effort, but not a whole lot. I cleared whatever was on top of a patch of my backyard (dead grass I think), and ended up digging somewhere between 6 inches and a foot to loosen up the soil. I found both my old phone line and my cable line while I was doing this (good thing I use neither and I know where my U-verse line is buried). I picked seed types that didn't have to be "started indoors" (too much work!) and planted three rows of watermelon, carrots, and cucumbers. After two weeks, I've got a ton of cucumbers coming up (middle of picture), a few watermelon plants (bottom of picture), and no carrots:


But then I really wanted peppers and started seeds indoors anyways. With way too many seeds for the starter thing that I bought, I ended up putting too many seeds per pot. Being pessimistic about the whole process, I didn't expect anything to happen, but now I have pots with up to eight plants sprouting. I know I need to cut back all the extras and just keep one or they'll all die, but I'm tempted to just keep the whole bunch and see what happens. I don't want to kill any of them yet! Besides, I do have some pots with just one or two sprouts and those should survive if the others die off. How many do I really need anyway? These plants are bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and tomatoes:



I also bought one pepper plant from Home Depot and planted it. It hasn't died in the week or two since I got it, so I'm happy about that.


I really won't be disappointed with how this turns out. I'm seeing green stuff everywhere so this has already exceeded my expectations.