Starting A Veggie "Garden"

So I know it's already June, (gosh where did spring go???) and I'm a little late to the party but Nicholas and I are starting our own little veggie garden. Now see we have a whole little fenced off section in an out of the way corner of the yard that has been a garden before. It was supposed to be a garden again this year. Welll...... the chickens and the duck are living in there at the moment so bummer, no in ground veggie gardening for us. Over memorial day though Old Time Pottery had a FANTASTIC sale and in amongst the items that were on sale were bunches and bunches of clay pots..... for under two bucks a piece. Not little tiny clay pots either, the nice useful 12 inch ones that are going to end up being really useful. :) We bought a bunch of them along with a bunch of smaller ones and they have been sitting on the back porch for about a week now. My mother gifted me with some dirt and I was all set. Except for the plants. Well last weekend I suddenly remembered that I had a Walmart gift card that I had received for Christmas and YAY off to wally world we went to look at veggies. To be honest, the selection was pretty sad lol. A bunch of the same kinds of plants I'm afraid and apparently tomatoes are the MOST popular b/c that is what they had the most of. A lot of the peat pots were pretty died out and the specimens wilted and dying. Bummer. Oh well. I bought several anyway.  Mostly I got the four packs of things like squash and various peppers b/c those were the cheapest and since they were all looking pretty sad I decided I would rather spend less and get more sad looking plants than spend more for less and risk some of them actually dying. We packed up our haul and ended up not having to spend any extra money for the plant. You've gotta love a gift card right? Because walmart had NO good looking herbs we also went to Lowe's which is right across the street to look. They must have been awaiting a shipment b/c they didn't have herbs either but they did have a poor dying four pack of spaghetti squash. When we took it up to the register my husband pointed out that it was dying and they sold it to us for just $ .50. Can't beat that!

I took advantage of nap time a couple of days later to plant our new container garden in the pots we purchased the weekend before. Everything except the tomatoes found a home in the pots. The tomatoes ended up in the flower bed up front where there are ironically no flowers b/c none of the seeds I planted this spring sprouted. I have just the worst luck with seeds lol. Anyway everything else is right off the back porch organized neatly which makes me happy.  So far everything is doing well. Some of the spaghetti squash plants don't look like they are going to make it but two of them, which are sharing one pot for now, seem to be recovering with good soil and plenty of water.  The tomatoes up from are also doing very very well.  It's even rained a time or two since we've planted the veggies which helps a TON since it's been soooooooooo dry here over the spring. I really cannot wait until we start getting good veggies in a few weeks. We've planted, several different peppers, tomatoes, egg plant, two types of squash, zucchini, and we have a strawberry plant that hubby and I have had since we got married that loaded with berries already. I am hoping to get more herbs, hopefully somebody will have some in stock soon, to add to the rosemary and mint that grows like crazy in our front yard. Maybe I will be able to look into canning and preserving some of the veggies for the winter. Not sure if we'll get enough this year with just what is in the pots but you never know I guess. Next year for sure I will try it! Maybe next year I will be able to plant a baby food garden for a new little Johnson, ya never know about that either :D

Now I just have to make sure to keep these guys away from the new plants and we'll be all set :D Hopefully they'll be to busy laying eggs soon :P 

Happy gardening!!