Here we go, friends – patio garden, round three.  Last year’s garden was a total bust – the squirrels got anything that was even approaching ripeness, and it was almost complete loss.  But I’m armed with squirrel repellant spray (which, incidentally, smells amazing – like citrus and cloves, which apparently squirrels can’t stand) and I’m ready to fight for my crop this year.

We planted in stages this year.  A couple of weeks ago, I hit the local garden center – looking for tomatoes, herbs, beans and fruit.  I mostly struck out – due to a cold snap the week before, the garden center had very little in the way of edibles, even though it was April.

We ended up with buttercrunch lettuce (my favorite!), spearmint, and lemon thyme.  Headed home with our kinda sad harvest and got ready for planting day number one.

Got the mint and the lettuce in pots and made a mental note to go back for more in a few weeks – which was this weekend.  We headed back to the same garden center on Easter Sunday after church – Nugget came with me – and found it overrun with people and pretty disorganized.  All of the edibles were on a few tables with signs that simply said “Assorted Edibles” – to find out what they had I had to read the plant markers themselves, which was fine but a bit of a challenge with a small gardener.  I made several loops and couldn’t find any cherry tomatoes or berries, so we decided to go back to our old standby, several miles south by our old house.

Much better!  I was able to get several varieties of cherry tomatoes, some basil and lavender, and three different shrubs from Bushel & Berry – pink icing blueberries, peach sorbet blueberries, and raspberry shortcake raspberries (a thornless potted variety – WUT).  Time to get them home and into the pots!

My first order of business was to move the buttercrunch lettuce out of the big pot and into three smaller pots.  All three lettuces looked a bit dejected after I’d moved them, but I’m hopeful that with time, water, sun and love, they’ll perk up again.  (Lettuce is fairly hardy and I’ve had success with it in the past, so I may have gotten overconfident.)  Next up, I mixed some new potting soil – nice and loamy – into the tomato pots and planted the cherry tomatoes and the basil.  Fingers crossed!

Said a prayer for no squirrels this year.

Raspberry shortcake went into the big pot in the middle, and I planted lavender in the smallest pot, then put it by the garden gate to bring luck and blessings to the house.

Last task was to put the two blueberry plants in these purple thistle pots I picked up a few weeks ago.  Here’s hoping…

And that’s the garden!  I may move some of the plants around – in fact, I’m sure I will – once I figure out where they’ll thrive best.  And I know this summer is going to be a pitched battle with the army of neighborhood squirrels.  But I’m armed with rage and squirrel repellant, and I. WILL. PREVAIL.

Is your garden in the ground (or pots, as the case may be)?