Le Jardin Companion Planting

Like a good little gardener, I started thinking about my veggie garden in January.  I spent hours going over seed catalogues and picking things out.  Come February, I knew that I had to get reasonable and only order things that I would actually eat.  I spent a good long time staring at this cucumber trying to convince myself that I NEEDED a cucumber that was gigantic, scaly and RED inside.  In the end, I rationalized that I don't even like cucumber and thus should not grow it.  Oh, I am getting so reasonable in my old age, no?  Feast your eyes on the Sikkim Cucumber...tempting, isn't it?!

not my image

My goal was to spend around $30 on seeds and ended up spending $70.  Oops.  I guess there's a lot of veggies that I'd eat. However, after asking around a bit, I found a friend that wanted to split the seeds with me. She took half of nearly everything, which worked out fantastic.  After planting most of my garden this spring, I still have enough seeds left over to plant another season of tomatoes, squash, etc.  My friend did not, however, want to split the Red Chinese Long Beans with me.  Ok, ok.  I HAD to sneak at least one novelty item into my practical gardening plan.   These puppies are over 2 feet long!

not my image

Anywho, back to the chain of gardening events.  The seeds arrived in March and i diligently started seeds in proper succession with seedling heat mats and grow lights that I procured from a big box store for $30 each.   I employed Mr. B to build me a stand for the lights with the promise that "It'll be soooo simple, I swear.  It'll take you 10 minutes, tops."  Of which, of course, it did not.

Next, I studied companion planting on this site and came up with a garden plan.  Feast your eyes on this beautiful illustration!  It was even decorated a bit by the Little Bird.  Very technical, isn't it?! 

Now that it has come time to plant, I am realizing why no one plants veggie gardens this big.  It's a lot of freakin work.  I'm not going to lie...I have been lamenting (when Mr. B is out of earshot, of course.  He doesn't NOT need to hear that I think that I *may* have been a tad overzealous with my plans this year) that it *may* be so much easier to just go to the farmers market and buy produce. 

Sigh.