It looks as though we got a little ahead of mother nature and lost some of our plants. We believed the freezing weather of this year to be in the rearview mirror when we planted on the first, but apparently we were a week too early. The tomatoes and basil appear to be gone and we'll have to plant those again, lesson learned.

On the other hand, we are seeing some nice progress with the onions and carrots. The last two days we have seen the onions grow an inch. Just today when we got home we noticed tiny little wispy green sprouts coming up from the carrot row. The cantaloupe has not shown any signs of life yet and the cayenne is not looking so healthy, but the jalepenos and spinach look strong.

Getting Started

For the last few years my wife and I have planted some herbs with success. Last year we added a couple of tomato plants and some peppers with little success. This year we decided to plant more variety just to have fun and learn something in the process. Neither of us have any experience, but we both enjoy learning by trying.

This year our attempts include carrots, broccoli, cantaloupe, jalapenos, cayenne, garlic, onions, tomatoes and strawberries. We don't have much room since it's a simple raised bed in our backyard so we are limited on space. We live in the south and our summer days will easily rise above 100 degrees. There is a very large ash tree that provides some shade to the bed, but the plants will get the direct sun from about noon on.

Here goes nothing.