I could tell you about the horribly disappointing dinner I made tonight while Shane was off at a moped thing in Toledo.  It involved my first attempt at using a fresh ham steak, and resulted in me eating a giant bowl of green beans for dinner.  How’s that for pathetic?  The green beans were good, though, and later in the evening I pumped up the tires on Orange and biked up to Swirlberry for frozen yogurt – my first bike ride since the fall.

What I will tell you about, however, is the garden.

It is SO exciting, you guys! We have the following planted: cucumbers, beets, rapini, chili peppers, bell peppers, curly kale, carrots, French breakfast radishes, zinnias, nasturtiums, yellow squash, sunflowers, onions, Red Norland potatoes, Yukon Gold potatoes, and several kinds of tomatoes. I’d tell you which kinds, but the little tags fell out of the plants somewhere between the farmers’ market and the garden. It’ll be a big surprise.

Seriously, I can’t tell you how happy working in the garden has made me. We made all kinds of novice mistakes, and will probably make many more before the season is over. Our red potatoes are failing to thrive because they’re getting a lot more shade than I expected. All but one of the plants that I started in the basement died when I set them out to harden off. We have some pretty virulent weeds. But you know what? Every time I walk over to the garden, I come home beaming.

Mark and Melissa have been taking videos of their garden and encouraged me to do the same, so here’s a 3 minute video tour I took tonight:

Garden photos: