My first attempt at gardening.

A little over a month ago I planted some flowers. This is my first time actually planting my own stuff. My mother taught me the basics when I was little, so that combined with the advice in this book, my flowers are doing quite well! The Pansies have been looking nice and healthy since I planted them (what a lovely shade of purple!), and the Impatiens are finally getting there. Impatiens are supposed to be in the shade only, but there's no where in my back or front yard that only gets shade. So, they get a bit of unfortunate early-morning sun up against the house, but that's the best I can do, sorry flowers!

The tall, light purple flowers (below) are Butterfly Blue Pincushions. They are a full-sun flower, but I accidentally paired them with a trailing plant that's only supposed to get partial sun =/ I guess these are the things you learn as you go! The trailing plant seems to be thriving except for one place where the leaves are looking burned. Whoops.

The White Saxifraga (the tiny white flowers surrounding the tall, skinny pink ones) were beautiful up until about a week ago, and they're no longer in full bloom. I think they may be getting a tad too much sun. Also, I have no idea what flowers the tall skinny pink ones are! Help?

I was getting annoyed with the Cyclamen flowers (the pink and yellow ones in the small pot on the table) because I was having to pick off so many dead ones and none of them would bloom, but they are now in full bloom and really pretty! I think I may have planted too many in that small pot though. In fact, I think I may have over planted in all my pots =/ They're all doing fine as of right now but it's only April. I hope they don't strangle each other and die! What's the rule on how much to plant in one pot? Again... I guess it's something you learn as you go.

Now, I have prepped the soil for my little garden space (about 5'x 4'). But I have no idea what to plant. My sister-in-law said zucchini was really easy to grow, so I might do some of that. Also, my husband is literally addicted to tomatoes, so I really have no choice but to grow those =) but what else should I plant? The problem is that the garden is in the corner of my house and a rock wall fence. It only gets partial sunlight in the morning. I know tomatoes are supposed to get full light, but I'm going to try anyways. We also bought some seeds to grow giant sunflowers, but again... they need full sun. (My mom grows giant sunflowers in Reno every year and they are HUGE and awesome... probably about 10-11 feet tall!) Ideally I would love to tear out some of the "grass" in our yard and build an above ground garden, but being that we're a military family and moving every 2.5 years or so, I don't think it's worth it. Plus, we might get in trouble with housing for tearing up the yard. But on the bright side. It's probably best I don't start off with a full on garden. I can get all my practice in now, and when we settle down sometime in the distant future I will know what I'm doing (hopefully!) and won't have any doubts about taking care of a huge garden. Imagine never having to get your veggies, lettuce, and some herbs at the grocery store! That would be awesome.

Well, any advice is more then welcome (for whoever reads this)! Also, here is a picture of a GIANT bee that scared the hell out of me! It... was... huge. And buzzed so loud you'd think there were ten bees. I guess it's a carpenter bee? It was black as death and scary. That's all I have to say about that.