This year was a haphazard garden. I ordered a few seed packets, but mainly just used seeds I already had. I started a couple of flats of transplants, and that’s all I planted–total plant cost was about $10 for new seeds and soils. There wasn’t any real planning on how much or even what I wanted, I just went with what I already had or felt like. We planted most everything in the beds where we ripped out the old shrubs, simply because it was easy. (They also met the requirements of getting enough sun, had decent soil, and were close to the house for easy care.)

In our garden we have

• broccoli raab
• radishes
• 8 lettuce
• 1 cabbage
• 15 tomatoes
• 8 peppers
• 2 eggplant
• 3 tomatillos
• 1 melon
• 1 cucumber
• 4 zucchini
• 2 winter squash
• and a bunch of seeded herbs and some flowers

Provided everything grows and does well, it should be a productive year, even with very little thought put into it. I wouldn’t have necessarily planned it this way–I would have loved more melons and some spinach and onions at least. Four zucchini plants does seem like a lot, but the last two years I’ve grown them I haven’t actually ended up with zucchini. I wouldn’t mind a lot this year.

My four-year old has really enjoyed helping plant everything. I’m a little picky when it come to gardening, so working with him is a good reminder to be more patient and not care so much about everything being just right. He and the toddler were overjoyed to discover that there were radishes underneath all those leaves, and kept picking them and bringing them inside, often before they were fully grown. Hopefully all the excitement about gardens also turns into a desire to actually eat some vegetables, but I’m not holding my breath.