Gardening Woes

I love gardening. Where I grew up in the middle-of-nowhere Michigan, we had beautiful black soil, and our yearly gardens flourished. I always helped my dad plant and care for our gardens. My favorites were always the tomatoes. There's nothing better than a plump red tomato, straight from the vine, still slightly warm from the sun. A close second would be the root vegetables because I loved pulling them up at harvest time. I think  I enjoyed the surprise. You have no idea just how big that carrot is going to be until you pull it out of the ground.

Maybe it's because of the poor soil, maybe the heat, and maybe it's because my dad's not here to help me weed and water (let's face it; he probably did most of the work anyway), but I have had the worst luck with gardening in Arkansas. The soil is hard clay, and the summer heat is much, much hotter than I'm used to. I've tried planting in the raised bed garden that came with our rental, I've tried container gardens out of 5 gallon buckets, and I've tried hanging plants. Everything I've ever planted has died horribly, save for the herbs in the pots on my back porch. But still, no sun-ripened tomatoes for this girl. I had all but decided to give up when my bunny gave me an idea.

Oh that's right, I haven't introduced her yet! Meet Eleanor:

I call her Ellie :)

So, Ellie and I have this idea to turn that garden spot into a little run for her, like what I used to have with Neville, only bigger and with bunny-safe plants sown into the soil. My plan is to till it up and plant stuff like strawberries, dandelions, grass, timothy hay, wheat seeds, oats, carrots, and other various bunny-safe herbs (that aren't used for specific medicinal purposes). Hopefully planting mostly grasses and herbs will make it easier to keep alive. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

So, while I may not have the pleasure of plucking tomatoes off the vine or pulling up giant carrots this summer, I will have something growing in my back yard, and that will be enough.