A new gardening season is upon us!

The upcoming winter months will be full of new experiences for me. Every year I like to try something new. Last year it was heirloom tomatoes in my backyard raised garden and this year it's sweet corn in that garden and an entirely new community garden at the church (which I'll get to in a future blog).

Almost two weeks ago I finally got around to preparing my garden by pulling out the sweet potatoes I used to keep down the weeds over the summer and adding some compost. The only survivor was the Malabar spinach which really started to grow later in the summer. Now, I have two large, healthy plants...and yes, it really does taste like spinach making it great for salad.

So, what's new? I decided to add a little (emphasis on the "little") sweet corn. I've been hesitant to plant any in the past because it takes up so much space. However, we simply love sweet corn too much and the prospect of 2-3 meals this winter was too much to resist. The corn is already 3-4 inches tall.

Last weekend I also planted peas, carrots, leaf lettuce, spinach, cukes and cantaloupe. As always I also threw in a few marigolds to help keep the bugs away. Heirloom tomatoes, radishes and broccoli will all be in before the end of the month.

I'll try to do a better job with regular updates this season. Stay tuned!