Where Do Butterflies Sleep?: How does your garden grow?

There are no silver bells in my garden, but it was my late Nana who sang that rhyme and passed her love for gardening to me. Thanks Nana.

Or perhaps it was that one time, some herby lady at an art show told my Mom (the woman that quite literally has killed a fake plant...I love you Mom!) that she was the one with the green thumb, and I wasn't. Perhaps my avid gardening is a way to prove to that lady that her "intuition" was wrong. Or perhaps she was right and I just have to work harder at the thing I love than if I was a natural green thumb. Perhaps I will never know.

What I do know is that as soon as I moved into this house with my husband, I planted plants. In. The. Ground. It was my way of establishing roots and it felt soo good. I had been carrying plants around with me in pots for years and they never seemed to make it - except for my precious jade.

I started a perennial butterfly garden 4 years ago and yes, it is "growing butterflies". In those years, I have learned that native and Florida friendly plants in the ground are my friend, and if they don't make it, they were not meant to be. Since my front garden is now surviving on it's own with little help from me, I decided to take on a new challenge and jump into vegetable gardening this year. By jump into, I mean, this is not one or two tomato plants! And by this year I mean, I have been talking about it, asking friends questions, and planning my attack in detail over the past year. To my own defense, I could not plant a thing last year due to our major renovation project and my poor butterfly garden had been horribly trampled and overgrown when we moved back in. Expanding into vegetable gardening drove me crazy so I planned, and planned, and pinned and pinned.

Into the veggie deep end we go!!!

I convinced my husband to build 4 of these raised beds. I was sure that it would be way too much space, but alas, I have easily over filled them.

He also shoveled the soil mix into the beds for me! Boy, was it a lot of soil. Thanks Hubby.

Just like grocery shopping, I advise you to go veggie plant shopping on a full tummy. I think I was hungry, because we got A. Lot. of veggies. 4 strawberries, thyme, oregano, 3 parsley. Tons of sweet Georgia onions, carrot seeds and asparagus (that's another story). 3 basil, 3 cherry tomatoes, 2 roma, 3 celebrity, 3 more basil, 4 green bell peppers, 2 red bell, white eggplant, purple eggplant and 3 cucumbers. Oh, I put pea seeds out too. Rosemary, mint, and lavender are mixed into the butterfly garden. If all these tomatoes actually show up, I am going to need to learn how to can.

This year I am determined to have sunflowers!! Every year something goes wrong while germinating, or planting, or watering or growing. This time, we sowed them straight into the soil, everywhere! All we can do now is water and hope.