Trying my hand at gardening

Much of today, Chad and I have been working in the yard, clearing the front flower bed to get ready for planting shrubs (there is nothing there now) and going to the nursery. We have this local nursery that we went to for the first time today, and I think we were probably there for two hours. They were so helpful and knowledgeable! I will never go to Home Depot or Lowe's to buy plants while we live here. A couple posts ago Chad showed you a picture of where he busted out the concrete slab that was supposed to be for an RV, although it must have been an RV for elves because it wasn't a very big slab. Anyway, he will be planting a garden there soon, and I have decided that my part in this whole venture will be sowing and caring for the herbs. I really like to cook, and I love using fresh herbs in my cooking, but I almost never buy them because 1)they are very expensive, 2) the quality in the local stores leaves something to be desired, and 3) I usually only use a little bit of them so the rest goes bad. Anyway, when we went to the nursery today, I picked out the seed packets of the herbs I like to use most often in cooking: thyme, basil, cilantro, mint, Italian parsley. These packets with a ton of seeds in them were less than 2 bucks each! They didn't have any rosemary seeds so I bought a rosemary plant. Well, while we were there, they just happened to be having an herb seminar, so I sat in on that and learned a bit more about how to plant and what sort of conditions to plant the herbs in. So over the next few months I will be documenting my first try at growing my own herbs, and I will show pictures of the progress. Here is the beginning: (thanks, mom, for all the pots! I didn't have to buy a single one.) From the left is thyme, flatleaf parsley, rosemary which is already smelling up the whole front porch, basil, mint, cilantro, and the 5 little pots on the bottom right will be tomato plants. I will be transferring everything in and out until the weather at night gets warmer. Once (if) the tomatoes become plants, we will transfer those to the ground in the backyard. The beginnings of my project. We are also planting spinach and squash in the garden, and probably some other veggies as well.

If you have any tips about planting in west Texas, we would love the suggestions! Chad's grandparents who lived here for years had a very large garden in their backyard and have given us some advice. Wish us luck!