Getting Garden Started

Those of you who knew me when I was a teen in San Jose may remember how much I hated doing yard work.  I'd do anything to avoid it.  When we moved to Utah in 2011 my attitutde began to change a little.  For one thing, the previous owners of our home created the most perfect soil for growing stuff in.  As a matter of fact, if I don't plant something in the soil, something else will definitely grow on its own.

I'd have to say that our 2013 garden was the biggest and best garden we've ever had.  Here is a picture showing the garden out-growning the two little garden boxes I setup in the side  yard.  The garden ended up consuming almost the entire side-yard.  It was awesome.

Please note, the picture above was from last July or August.  

We have had a very mild winter and spring has arrived early; however, as a rule of thumb, we wait to plant the stuff that can't handle frosts until after Mother's Day.  So what to people in Utah do to get a jump-start on their gardens without running the risk of loosing it all in a freak frost?

We use green-houses, water walls, or anything that will keep the frost off plants.  

Here is this year's attempt at getting started.

Notice the bag of rocks on the bottom shelf.  The rocks are there because the past few days have been very windy.  On Sunday the wind blew the green-house over along with all the stuff I had already planted.  It was very sad to see all the baby plants smooshed upside down.  

The plants that are not in the clear plastic starter jiffy kits are actually in the recycled paper forms that the Kitchen LED lighting came in.  The recessed lighting I installed in the kitchen was packed in these really nice recycled paper boxes.  I liked them so much that I kept them and I'm now growing strawberry plants in them.  Woot Woot!