Well things started off kind of rough. I got my new beds up and got some early plants in. Was waiting on the results of the soil analysis, which came back showing almost no nitrogen. I used blood meal but I guess I overdid it (used no more than what the package called for and even kinda went under that and kept away from plants to be safe) because everything got nitrogen burn. I decided to wait it out rather than start over (won't be doing that again, especially when all the plants are so young).

The only things left from that period are the tomatoes, cucumbers and some of the pole beans. I did manage to get some pretty decent corn even though they ranged in sizes from 1 foot to over 6. I took a bunch of pics today to share on here, I've never really done it before though. I know when I was first lurking the boards I loved just going through different threads and looking at people's gardens (and still do). So I'm going to add to the pictures.

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The long ones are 4x20 and the short one is 4x12.

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My herbs.. May not look like much but herbs have been the bane of my gardening experience so far. Some are easy, like cilantro or basil, but most of the rest I have such trouble getting it going.

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In the future I don't plan to grow so many variates at a time, I just got a little carried away. The 5 huge plants (they're about 4 foot high) in the boxes are anaheim, I've also got tabasco, hot hungarian wax, cayanne, serrano, pepperoncini (sp?) and orange bell.

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First pic shows my romas.. Mentioned them above as being nitrogen burned, they're putting out tomatoes barely the size of 2 grapes, a lot of them are misshapen too (more like a butternut squash). 2nd pics shows my tomatillos, full of flowers but nothing to pollinate them. I got one single tiny tomatillo after I saw a wasp going flower to flower, but nothing since. The third was actually just a back up plant that I didn't end up needing. I cut the bottom off an old trash can and threw some potting soil and compost in it and just let the plant do it's thing. It's been mostly an experiment and it's taught me a lot about BER and how consistent watering is extremely important in tomatoes. In the Texas heat that thing can dry out pretty fast.

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My cucumbers, I don't remember the variety, all I remember is it's a pickling type. The pole beans and these have taught me the value of being diligent in training the vines. I left it a lone for a week or so and both had gotten out of control to where I couldn't untangle it all without ripping up most of it.

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My summer squash that is just now putting on fruit. Unfortunately wind damage killed my last set (that I had since the beginning of these beds) so I had to start over. Eggplant hasn't been a friend to me either, but I'm at least getting somewhere now.

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Sugar baby watermelon. It's going crazy. It hasn't even been out but a few weeks at most, and I transplanted from 3 plants that only had 2-3 leaves each. This is the first thing that got compost dug into the soil I bought so I think that and the combination of favorable conditions is causing rapid growth. That's my theory anyways.

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Finally, the plot that started it all. This was actually my 'test' garden. Last year, when I first decided to start gardening and see if I would even like it and stick with it (I have a habit of doing something for a while and then getting tired of it) this is what I made. I dug up a 12x3 area of dirt and grass and dumped in some top soil, peat moss, and compost and stirred it all up and planted my first seeds and nothing. Weeks went by and no sprouts, not even weeds.

So I tried again, this time starting the seeds in cups rather than in the ground. Again nothing. It would take me at least one or two more times before I'd get anything to sprout and I promptly killed it. I could keep going on, but basically I kept making mistakes and fixing them and learning from them.. I still am. I love gardening because it's a constant learning experience. And when you get the one thing right, it feels great.

About the pic, when I went to tear up all the plants that were in it, I noticed the soil was so much better than what I had started with and couldn't bring myself to just let the yard reclaim the patch of soil. So I decided to turn it into my strawberry patch. 2 of them died which I later added some flowers to, to bring in the bees (hopefully) so I can get some tomatillos before summer is over.