I am very happy to share with you the start a fabulous new weekly segment that I would like to call, “Your Garden Showcase.”

For those of you who are knew to this site, this past year, I took a giant step and planted my own garden. Since then, I have been drawn to learning the tricks of the trade through others and not through google searches. Don’t get me wrong, I love google, but I’m pretty sure that google has never built it’s own garden. Am I right?! So I’ve become fascinated with real people’s gardens. How are they planted? Are they having the same problems as me? Have they figured out how to solve them? Are they as excited as I am to see everything bloom? What are they planting?

I have become so intrigued with just how your gardens are growing, that I will be sharing a garden a week right here with the rest of you. Because if any of you are like me and want to soak up as much gardening knowledge as you can, you’ll be just as curious to see how gardens across the globe are doing.

Let’s get into the swing of things shall we?

Right around the same time I started my garden, another blogger friend, Suz from daybydaywithsuz, started hers. I seriously thought I was on the verge of becoming a garden stalker because like me, she lives in Florida and I wondered if we would have the same problems. Don’t worry, I’m definitely not a stalker!

When I first laid eyes on her garden, I absolutely fell in love with how long it was. There’s just enough room to walk through the “aisles” and it’s simply perfect! Well, at least in my eyes it is ;) I don’t know if you noticed this from the pictures, but she has steps that lead into her garden. Steps! How envious am I?! I would feel like such a queen walking down those steps into my garden. I hope she feels the same! But from my understanding, her adorable 2 boxers also love those steps as much as I do and have been helping themselves to her fresh tomatoes as much as they like. Lil buggers! That’s the one thing she’d do differently… have a fence on all four sides. I don’t blame her! I’d at least want whoever was eating my fruits and veggies to actually be able to tell me how good they were!

Suz is a fellow salsa lover and is looking forward to making her very own fresh salsa from all her goodies that she has growing. Right now she has tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, lettuce, red peppers, broccoli, potatoes, spices, weeds (I seriously laughed when I read that!) and zucchini all growing in her wonderful garden. I love to look at her lettuce. Mine died a long time ago so to see hers thriving is a special treat! I’m also so interested in seeing how well her potatoes do and how big they get.

This is her first season growing a garden. Unless I knew this, I wouldn’t have ever guessed. And why a garden? Why now? Fresh produce. Suz loooooves the taste of fresh produce. Well Suz, you’re doing a great job with it!

Other than her wonderful boxers, Ozzie and Cocoa, helping her in her garden, her husband, or “Coach” as she likes to call him, was nice enough to dig up the grass for her, till the dirt and even put up the fence! Talk about the world’s greatest helper!

Her best tip to give, start your seeds in pots rather than right in the garden. The ones that started in pots fared far better than the ones planted right in the garden. Good tip! I’ll definitely be doing that next time!

Other than the dogs munching away freely, the only real problem she’s seemed to have is ants, and even then, Suz says they’re not really a problem. I’ve heard that they’re actually good for a garden. They help keep other pests away. Maybe she could send some ants this way. Maybe then I wouldn’t have the little pest problem that I do!

I love her garden. It’s so vibrant and full of color! I’m incredibly jealous that she’ll be able to enjoy salad after salad after salad! Those greens and reds (red lettuce) look so crispy and delicious! Top those with some peppers, zucchini and broccoli and you’ve got yourself one amazing meal!

Thank you Suz for letting me showcase your wonderful garden. It was truly an honor and I wish you lived closer to me so I could see your garden in person! You’re doing such an amazing job, especially since this is your first year! Keep up the great work, enjoy those goodies, and thank you again!

Do you have a garden that you’d like to show off? Do you know of someone who has a garden that you admire? Let me know… because I would absolutely love to show it off! Just leave me a comment or send me an email and we’ll chit chat away! Happy gardening everyone!

Tags: garden ideas, gardening tips, gardens, small garden spaces

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 26th, 2010 and is filed under the garden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.