Laura's Legacy: Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, oh my!

A trip to the farmers market in Winston-Salem earlier this month really didn't help my budget. What began as "I'll just get a couple of tomato, pepper and eggplant plants for containers" turned into "holycrapican'tbelievehowcheaptheseplantsare" and thus I fell victim to a sensory overload and drove home with over two flats of vegetable plants plus another of my first batch of native flowers and foxgloves. Other Half was there, too, so I try to place some of the blame on him for helping load up the flats as he also loves fresh veggies and gardening. I didn't plan on having a garden this year due to time and budget constraints. Lord knows there's enough to do inside the house. However, I am weak before anything green, so I caved. There were raised beds to be constructed out of salvaged and new wood, and soil to be tilled (and let me tell you, there is some amazing soil on my land). I did have to add soil to fill the beds, some from other areas of the property where leaves had naturally composted plus more purchased at a local home center. I didn't want to take the time to cultivate the soil by hand, partially because even though I started in early May, the temperatures were beginning to soar and the humidity was matching it. Craigslist netted a good used 5hp tiller. I could justify the purchase, as there are other areas where I could use it and gardening of some type will be ongoing for many years to come. Now that I had the resources, I thought "Well, I'm into this now, might as well go ahead and finish it" so I picked up herb and vegetable seeds and have a ton of seedlings started. The old workshop doubles perfectly as a garden shed, now that it's been cleaned out. Roughly $500 later, I'm happy. It's worth it. It has been several years since I lived where I could have a garden, and all the memories and delights of watching the plants grow and anticipating the harvest has begun.