Early in the spring I started a container garden outside my front door.

Here are early photos from the first week of May:

Here are photos from last week, after a few days of rain. I have a few pot tomatoes (not sure these will be successful), marigolds, flossflower, mint, oregano, lemon balm, cleome, nicotiana, straw flower, sweet william, catnip, chamomile, and anise hyssop.

From seed, I planted larkspur, alyssum, and poppies. I don’t know if the poppies will actually bloom because I planted them a bit late. They’ve sprouted and we’ll see what happens.

In addition to the container garden, I have a raised bed that I’ll fill with compost/soil this coming weekend. It’s a collaboration project with my sweet neighbor, and between the two of us, we’re wayyyyyyy excited about it.

We plan on using cattle panel to make tomato cages, as well as trellises for the cukes, squashes, melons, etc.

I have a few different tomatoes growing outside my back porch (mostly bush tomatoes) because you can never have enough tomatoes and I want to live on gazpacho this summer. I also planted 5 or 6 different flowers in that bed a few days ago. Mostly cottage garden varieties. Hopefully they make it! I planted 13 different dahlia tubers 2 weeks ago, and I’m really anxious to see if they make it. They *should* break through the soil in the next week or two.

If you’ve read this far and have any tips for a beginner gardener, please pass them along. : )