But when I moved into my new house and the previous house owners being very good gardeners (as opposed to me, my Dad lovingly calls me Brown thumb) I had this calling to start to garden and continue the good work that the people before me started. And hopefully improve what is here.

Well to my horror right off the start there was a rose garden, oh I better say a memorial rose garden, I killed everyone of them. At my old house we never really did anything to the roses just feed them a couple of times a year. So we fed the roses only to have them die right away. After taking the rest of the summer to deliberate on what to do with that space I decided next year it is going to be strawberries. Instead of paying to pick on someone elses property I might as well walk out my back door.

The huge Lavender bed that is out there (10’ x 30’ roughly) I was going to pull I thnk I am going to keep. The flowers were cool but I am not really sure what to do with them and have to do some research on how to care for them. My folks and a friend of mine would like to take some I told them to grab a shovel and have at it.

Everthing grew reall well in my garden except for the tomatoes. There was plenty but two of the types did not ripen. The San Marzano and the Cherokee Purple had plenty of fruit but nothing ripened. Now the Cherokee Cherry and the Black Plums had plenty of fruit and they ripened. Excellent flavours on both of these by the way. I was able to find heirloom seeds for the Black Plums and the Cherokee Purple I think that I want to continue with the heirloom varitey so if anyone out there has any seed catalogues ideas for my please send my way.

I am going to build a couple of raised beds next year to put in my herb garden. I use alot of herbs to cook with so there will lot of fresh herbs but also for next year I thought that I am going to try some different herbs for teas and a a little project that I wanted to start using Lemon Balm (Bro. Damocles did you start your project with the Lemon Balm).

And the project I really want to do is build an outdoor wood burning oven (pizza oven). But with the way things are going economically maybe this project has to wait.