The First Year : Gardening Lessons Learned

As the end of the growing season is upon us, I just wanted to take a minute to say how awesome growing stuff is.  I honestly can't tell you how much I love it.  Well actually I love it so much that I have decided to make it my plan B in life.  If all else fails (and maybe even if all else doesn't fail) I am going to go to school for organic farming or horticulture and create an organic cooking school/retreat on a farm.  I know I told you that already.  Whatever.  It will be freaking awesome.  You can all pay me and I'll let you come.

Also I just wanted to recap some things I have learned in my first year of growing... for all of our benefits.

• Most importantly, plants WANT to grow.  It's not that hard, if you water them and give them sunlight they grow.  I don't know why before I started gardening I thought it was this big complicated mystery.  Here's a secret: it's not.
• Follow the instructutions on the seed pack.  This may seem like a "duh" but sometimes I would plant things too late and then they wouldn't really work out.
• Tomatillos are rock stars in the garden.
• Everything that is from a warmer environment than here should have been grown in the green house; ie: eggplant, cucumber, peppers, etc.
• lettuce and radish give you instant gardening gratification... and by instant I mean like a month.
• Potatoes are really easy and taste 100 times better fresh from the soil.  
• Don't dump water on seedlings, just mist them with a spray bottle.  
• Grow bags are not all they're cracked up to be.
• And finally, grow things you would want to eat!  

And here is what I am looking forward to in my quest for food self sustainability:

• Ducks and chickens... but especially ducks.  They're much cuter than chickens don't you think?  Chickens give me the creeps a little.
• Growing Jerusalem artichokes - most underrated and totally delicious vegetable ever.
• Planting fruit trees
• An asparagus patch : it takes a few years to get these started, so we have to wait for our forever home to invest in this.  
• A pumpkin patch : Pumpkins are my favorite and they keep for months in the pantry.  I have a few pumpkin recipes in mind for this month so hopefully I will get around to posting them.  I know I have been neglecting the blog - especially the recipes bit.  

Do you guys have any good growing tips?