Up until last year, I had a notorious black thumb, sending many, many a plant to early graves. I was lucky if my houseplants made it a few months, but strangely had a few super-mega-ultra strong plants that lasted a year or two. Clearly some other entity was responsible for their survival.

Last year the stars must have alligned just so, so that I was suddenly blessed with not only a green thumb, but a burning desire to use it. This will be my second year gardening, and I can only say that I wish I’d started sooner. Despite living in a New York City apartment, I am lucky enough to have a backyard that I share with my neighbor. And despite living in this apartment for nearly 6 years, I’m only just now taking advantage of my space. Dumb, I know. My fantasies of backard movie screenings died long ago, but backyard garden? Yes, you will be mine!

Thanks in part to my upstairs neighbor feeding the stray cats in the hood a few winters back, my yard became a glorified litterbox, quickly ruining any desire to dig around in it. When the wind blows the wrong way….stinky! But what can I do? Last year, when I downright refused to be stymied by these poopie trespassers, I started container gardening. I had no idea… repeat NO IDEA what I was doing.  But how romantic, how “modern” of me to want to grow some tomatoes! And tomatoes I grew! (And squash, peppers, kale, lettuce and herbs.)

I wish I’d started this “blogging” process for last years garden, but alas, one thing at a time little lamb!

Here are a few pics of my container garden from last year:

May 28th, 2008 (I started a little late last year)

Fast Forward to June 17th. So GREEN!

Squash Blossoms! My first little squashies growing!

Parsley, Cilantro, Swiss Chard, and Kale!

Roma tomatoes. These ended up with end-blossom rot

Nice right? Like a fool I didn’t document my bounty, but armed with foresight, I’ll be sure to keep diligent records this year.

Inspired by my success, I dove in headfirst this year, and build a raised garden bed. Being able to control the soil was hugely important (read: no cat poop). I became kind of a gardening nerd overnight, and decided I’d give this hokey “square foot gardening” thing a try. This moustashioed man wrote the book on it (it’s really pretty great). In an effort to track my learning curve in this process, I’m going to make an effort to blog about my steps, and stumbles.

Here is my raised bed, fashioned entirely after the vision of sir Mel Bartholomew. The cage over the top is removable (its hard to see here) and was necessary to keep the aforementioned cats from pooping in my garden bed. This happened twice and I was NOT happy.

And here are my radish sprouts!

And my itty bitty celeriac sprout. That’s my pinky finger!

I’ll be updating my blog regularly as things come up from the ground, and then come out of the ground and onto my plate. So stay tuned!!!

Here’s what I’ll be growing this year:

• Carrots – Napoli
• Kale – Curly
• Kale – Lacinato
• Celeriac
• Radish – Pink Beauty
• Cabbage – Savoy
• Cabbage – Red
• Spinach – Smooth Leaf
• Red Oakleaf Lettuce
• Butterhead Lettuce
• Red Ridinghood Lettuce
• Rouge D’Hiver Lettuce
• Shelling Peas
• Snap Peas
• Squash – Black Beauty
• Swiss Chard
• Cherry Tomato
• Yellow Brandywine Tomato
• Black Prince Tomato
• Cilantro

My rosemary plant from last year is thriving, and when the farmers market starts stocking basil plants I’ll pick a few of those up too. One of my strawberry plants survived the winter, and this year I’m declaring war on the birds who took every last berry last summer. I’ve got chicken wire waiting in the wings!

A few weeks from now my garden will be kickin and I’ll keep you all posted!