Project Garden Noob - Year 6

A while ago, I commented on Facebook that when bananas start to die, you make banana bread.  But when lettuce starts to die, nothing happens.  Then some friends reminded me that dying lettuce could go to animals (don't have) or to the compost bin. ::sigh:: When we started packing up to move last March, I looked over at the compost tumbler.  I'm not sure when the last time someone even touched the damn thing.  Is it overridden with bugs?  Am I brave enough to open it up, dump out its contents, and move it? I was really leaning towards abandonment, but come the day of the move my "I can do this" attitude took over and I marched to the compost bin, unlatched it, and turned it upside down. This is what fell out: I was shocked.  It was dark, it didn't smell, no bugs.  It was perfect compost. Ish. There were some egg shells still hanging on for dear life.  So it's true, if you let organic garbage sit around for three years undisturbed, it ...

As of Saturday, we'll have been in our new home three months.  Currently in our new yard, we have a somewhat hideous attempt at a garden.  I'm not sure exactly when this first picture was taken, this was a pic from the original listing.  The split-rail fence has gots to go.  If you take a closer look, you can see that there appears to be a random mishmash of plants in here.  Looks like there is a rosebush (two actually), some green thing (sage bush), and my husband discovered chives and strawberries. Huh.  We've struggled on deciding what to do with this space.  I'm not sure I want my garden around an A/C unit and so far this "garden" is just a hot mess of weeds, rocks, and random plants.  Our current plan is to scrap everything except the strawberries.  I hope to make enough room in the next week or so to put a cucumber and zucchini in the ground, but time is running out.  I also want to enclose the strawberries an...

No, I am not giving up on our garden, but if we had big life changes last year (read: baby), this year was holy moly Batman! Short story:  We sold our house for a parking lot development.  In exchange, we were able to get a new house with less issues and a MUCH smaller yard. Our old property was on 1/3 acre, great for space, horrible for maintaining a lawn.  So when we saw the smaller yard, we were thrilled! See - small yard! Until it comes to garden planning.  I have a blank slate. A small, blank slate.  Do I want to put it a garden of the same size (25x10)? Something smaller?  Raised beds or in the ground? The answer?  I have no clue.  I think I want to hire a landscaper in the near future to help us come up with a general plan for the whole property that we can slowly work on for the next few years. This summer I might try my hand at some container gardening and just throwing some zucchini seeds in the ground to see what happ...