A new gardening adventure

There were many things I was not looking forward to returning to when we moved back to the Midwest. For example, mosquitoes, which have been eating us alive the past week or so. The older two offspring have been keeping a running count of their bites so far.

We were anticipating the opportunity to have a more plentiful garden, with a longer growing season, greater humidity/moisture, and richer soil. Getting it all up and running has been consuming a fair share of time (and other resources), but seems to be an activity that everyone seems to be inclined in which to participate in some way or another. Planning, purchasing seeds and other start-up items, starting seeds indoors and out, have all been going on for at least 3 months now. All of the larger pots in the picture below were left here on the property with various stages of decaying plants and so forth in them. We have been eating lettuce and arugula out of them the past few weeks, and already on a second planting in some of them.These pansies seem to be doing quite well so far, too. I had dreams of lobelias, like my grandmother used to have every summer in her window boxes, but all attempts at getting the seeds to start have been unsuccessful. Bits of today were spent starting another round of seeds to go out in the garden and yard once they are up and growing. After the time and effort, I managed to knock a container of about 8 little pots off on the floor, so now the carefully marked and planted seeds are all jumbled up, and I had to replant them all. It will be a guessing game when things start popping up!