Gardening

These are my tomatoes. I GREW TOMATOES! I've never been so proud, so don't tell me about gardeners who grow a full array of vegetables to supply food for their entire family, unless you have all their secrets.

Now that we're in the south with the rain and better soil and lots of yard space I've been feeling a need to get a garden going. I had great success with tomatoes last year and want to expand but feel completely lost on how to do this gardening thing right. I went to a gardening workshop but walked out feeling overwhelmed. I'm worried I'm going to spend all this time and money only to end up killing everything so I'm trying to learn what I can and make the best of it.

We have an excellent Preparedness Specialist in our ward who sends us e-mails often. He sent me this gardening link from the church. I'm hoping I can access the television series from BYU Broadcasting on the internet.

Has anyone done gardening? I would love to hear any tips or words of encouragement on the subject! I'm really interested in hearing how to simplify and use supplies you have on hand (e.g. plastic bottles and egg cartons for seed starters, leaves for mulching, newspaper as weed barrier- you know Myrtle stuff). I'm going to a free composting workshop to find out how to put to good use all the tons of leaves, grass clippings and food scraps I have. I would also love you forever if you can link me to a site (especially a blog) that explains gardening to you in simple steps.

I lined the almost ripe tomatoes on my windowsill to finish ripening. It made me feel so good everytime I'd look up from my dishes to see all these fresh tomatoes I'd grown. Tomatoes are a great place to start and are very encouraging in your gardening efforts.