Gardening 101: A Beginner (me) and My Garden

I've been saying for years that I wanted to plant a garden.  Years!  I've grown tomatoes for the past two years.  The first year I planted three plants myself and they did way better than I expected.  Last year, they decided to come up all on their own and became their own little tomato jungle.  Oops!  Both years I had way more tomatoes than I could keep up with but it was so nice having fresh tomatoes whenever I wanted.  And I finally felt like I was starting to get the hang of this keeping plants alive thing :)  This year I said I was going to plant a garden no matter what because I love the idea of having all those fresh veggies just waiting for my family to eat!  Unfortunately, I am also what you would call a clueless gardener.  I've never done it before (besides tomatoes), and I admit that I haven't the slightest idea on what works best or anything else that goes into gardening.  This will be the year that I learn.  I'm not sure how it will go, if I will be able to keep everything alive, or even if I will be able to grow vegetables.  But I plan on trying my hardest and sharing the experience with all of you!

Last Saturday was the beginning of planning and planting my first garden.  My husband and Dad had worked together to build two boxes for me to use (see below picture).  It felt like the possibilities to what I could grow were endless.

The next step was going to the store and buying plants.  I knew that I wanted to try seeds with some of my vegetables, but I also wanted some starter plants that had already begun to grow.  I had a list planned out in my head of all the different vegetables I wanted to plant as well.  That list went out the window as soon as I found the gardening section at the store :)  This is what I ended up bringing home with me:

 

I came home with entirely too much but I was so excited.  Saturday we decided to dig in and get everything planted.

 

This is box number one and has all kinds of different veggies.  I planted green bell peppers, red bell peppers, yellow bell peppers, banana peppers, cucumbers, and four tomato plants.  Four!  Two are cherry tomato plants and two are regular tomato plants.

In box two I have broccoli and romaine lettuce plants.  For seeds I planted peas, radishes, green onion, beans, carrots, and sugar snap peas.  This is what you call insanity :) But in a good way of course!

I'm a newbie so I'm planning on going to the library to pick up some gardening books.  If you have any particular recommendations on this subject (or just with gardening in general) feel free to share!  I'm going to need all of the help that I can get!  Hopefully, by the end of the summer I will be sharing all of the rewards of having a vegetable garden in pictures.  Now, it is time to go water those plants!