Gardening Bonanza!!

One of my hidden passions is plants and gardening. What little I know I learned from my grandmother and mother. As a young girl, we started a garden that held so many yummy things! We learned how to compost and cultivate our vegetables. We weren't great but, we did learn priceless rudimentary knowledge of how a garden is started and cared for. So, yesterday after a couple of weeks of planning and researching David and I broke ground! We're starting small with plans to expand as we learn more. Fortunately, we're working with ground that has been mulched, manured, composted and planted already! So, when we turned over the first shovel full of dirt the earth was a beautiful dark brown with that unmistakable smell of fertility. There were lots of worms and we threw on some old composted manure after we tossed the ground. Our garden, for the time being, has only three rows in which will be planted: chives, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, onions and squash! Each of these vegetables are staples in our house so, we know that these veggies won't be wasted. As we raked, hoed and built up the rows, Cylas joined in with the exuberance only a two year old has. He wielded his little shovel like a battle ax and used the hoe to break down the rows we were building up! By the end of it all, he was covered in dirt and smelled a little manure-y. He and David also dug into some of the plants that were left over from the last garden. They were feeding each other pieces of "schavel" I don't know what it is called in English. But, it's a sour little plant that David just loves and got Cylas to appreciate as well!
In order to keep myself busy, I came up with a list of skills that I wanted to acquire after our move here. Gardening was one of those skills that I wanted to perfect. Amongst the others: learning French, sewing, canning, archery and perfecting my Russian -- gardening is really a passion of mine that I would like to practice in memory of my grandmother whose life was cut short due to a lung disease. Over the past couple of years, I began to realize how much my grandmother taught me before she died! And I think to myself, "what if she had stayed alive longer, how much more would I know?". So, join me on my gardening adventures here in PA!!