I spent the whole day starting my garden. In the morning, my Mom and I went to a farm, the farmers market, and a garden center and bought a few starters. I ended up getting mixed greens, spinach, rosemary, basil, tomato, cherry tomato, cucumbers, carrot seeds, and marigold plants. Then we began planting them back at my apartment garden plot, while my cat, Taz, looked at us working hard through the window. Afterwards I went back to a garden center to buy a fence to put around my plot to hopefully keep the rabbits away, while also doubling as a trellis. My dad helped me put it up and I think it looks great! I'm excited to see how my garden grows throughout the year!

I came to the realization that I'll have to bring in my mixed greens and spinach plants indoors once it consistently reaches higher summer temperatures. I didn't realize lettuce and spinach don't do super well in the heat. Luckily I have some spare pots ready for them when that time comes. I will have to purchase grow lights since my apartment is north facing, but I'm willing to do it if it means free greens throughout the summer! My apartment will look a little more lively with plants too.

I got a call today from one of my landlords complimenting my garden plot! He said that I kinda set the bar high since I put in a fence and everything lol. I noticed last year that most people skipped putting in a fence, and their garden seemed to be fine without one. I was originally thinking of doing the same and skipping the fence, but I feel like with all the crops I'm planting, I'm kinda asking for a bunny to come over and eat my stuff If I don't put up a fence. I literally have a rabbit feast in my garden, growing all the stuff that a rabbit could want. So, a fence makes sense in my case. Anyway, I'm excited to see what other people do once they start their plots.

My lettuce is doing so well! It looks so happy! There was good rain the past 3 days and I can tell everything is growing bigger already, especially my cherry tomatoes. No watering duty for me! Also peep my bumble bee garden gnome. I won it during a bingo event at my grandma's senior center lol. It will be looking over my veggies.

I'm officially starting to do weed work for my landlords around the apartment building! The reason being, they're getting a bit older and starting to see some health complications. My landlords are a couple. The guy has been battling cancer for a while (though he's starting to get a lot better now!), and the gal has told me that she's been dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome where it has become pretty painful for her to do much yard work for long periods. I'm happy to help them out, and the best part is, I'll be getting paid $25 an hour for doing it which will go towards my rent with them! Yesterday, before the storm, the woman landlord showed me around the garden bed's she wanted to be kept up, then she also showed me the garden beds at her place too (which is just right down the street). idk if I'd get to their place right away, but its good to know if I wanna rack more hours.

Last evening I did 2hrs of weeding for the landlords. It was kind of a lot, and my fingers are tired, but at least I'm $50 richer hehe. I got a lot of passerby comments while I was weeding like, "not a fun job...", which made me feel more negative about the process, but the comments like "hard work!" and "you've done a lot of work!" made me feel better. Goes to show how positivity and negativity can spread so easily even for a task I was already so neutral about.

Anyway, this is the garden as of today! You can really tell that the lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and basil have grown a lot. I'm thinking I should probably bring my spinach inside soon. It's already getting toasted by the hotter sunny days. Ahh and then my carrots still havent sprouted, so I'm trying to germinate some of the seeds indoors now.

Mica cap mushrooms keep growing in my garden. idk how they keep getting in there ;; They look a bit like bug eggs so before I knew what they were, they really freaked me out lol. The garden is looking good otherwise yippee!

OMG MY GARDEN IS GETTING HUGE

I've been so busy this past week studying for my certifications that I hadn't really realized how much my garden has grown. I've been really good about watering it every day and so my veggies have been giving back to me!^ I haven't been so good about the weeds and mushrooms though this week, if you see them in the images, no you don't. I'll pick them out later tonight.

I also had to get in and get the close up pictures. They're getting so big its crazy. I'm gonna have to harvest some soon and maybe make some salad from the lettuce + spinach and caprese from the basil.