Peas, Please?!

The first thing I do after getting home from work is run out to the garden to check and see what is going on. Frequently, this is interrupted by chasing Anthony back into the backyard (note to self, new house must have fenced backyard!), hollering at him to stop digging in my veggie beds with my trowel, and hauling him into the house to wash his hands and kiss away all the fire ant bites that he got while digging in my garden (and if I wasn't his mommy, I'd say serves him right). I encourage his participation in gardening, I just don't appreciate when he tries to dig up my cucumber seedlings when there is a perfectly good sandbox to dig in. On the rare occasion that I get a few minutes peace out in the garden, I notice the new things that are happening. The tomatoes have lots of flowers and there are baby tomatoes on the paste variety that I am growing, there are new leaves everywhere, and what did my wandering eyes behold?

PEAS!



Giddiness is the best way I can describe it. I tried peas in the fall and was rewarded with one measly flower and a bunch of dead plants. So like any good gardener, I tried again. Lo and behold, it's working this time. The peas have not filled in yet, but it was all I could do not to eat the darn thing off the plant because it looked so tasty. I planted 10 seeds in January. All 10 have come up and are growing, with lots of pretty little pea flowers. I can't wait until pea pickin' time.

Welcome

Pull up a chair, grab some lemonade, and sit a spell. I started this blog to chronicle life in my home garden, the antics of my cats, and life in the day of my preschooler (which is usually more than enough comic relief for my small family). Our family is in the midst of some major changes, so I'll be writing about them too.
I have recently acquired a passion for gardening, brought about by a move back home to Houston, Texas where you can grow things year round.

It all started with the move. I had lived in apartments since college, but tried to get my fingers in dirt at least once a year in the spring with some impatiens in pots on the porch. I'm an environmental geologist...and mostly deal with nasty disgusting dirt. Digging my hands into a bag of clean soil and sticking flowers in it did me a world of good every spring, even if it was to only stick them into pots. When things in California got tough economy-wise, we left Cali and moved home to Houston.

Once the wet and depressing 2008 Houston winter let go, I was ready to get out in the yard and do something that involved dirt. Since the house that we found had a huge backyard, I could not resist the urge to put in a small herb garden and some tomato and pepper plants. This was my first mistake. I've been gardening ever since.