It was by no means a difficult project, and we had rather high hopes for the bounty of veggies this urban plot of land could yield, but we were somewhat disappointed. The sunlight for the yard is largely obscured by our large tree for the first half of the day, then the house blocks the sun in the early evening, which leaves us with just about four hours of direct sun for the area. Additionally, the soil seems to be somewhat overtaken by the tree and ivy roots from the surrounding growth, which limits the plants' ability to really thrive.

Both the first and second year we had some veggies that we were able to pick and eat (or feed to Lulu), but the yield was significantly lower than we had hoped due to various failures. I'm pretty sure we could buy the same amount of fruit and veggies from the store using about the same amount of money spent on watering our plants.

This year we decided to take a little bit more of a relaxed approach to our garden and focus on items with which we've had better success. Now that we have a few growing seasons under our belt, we're getting better at knowing which plants work, when they work, and where we should plant them.

Before we could jump into planting we needed to first clear out last year's plants. We had let the cabbage, broccoli, and other remaining vegetables continue to grow over the winter. This left a handful of large plants that were in no shape to produce any edible food. I pulled up these plants, with the exception of the chives and leeks, and discarded them making way for all of the new items we picked up over the weekend. 

Before we could place the plants in the soil, Alex had to loosen the dirt by breaking up the roots that had infiltrated the area since last year. This is where the tree and ivy roots come in. He worked at the area for about 30 minutes and twisted up a rather large ball of roots he was able to remove from the soil. Had we left those roots in place and just went ahead with planting, I'm pretty sure all of our plants would have been choked out.

The soil we have in the bed is still a good and rich organic soil. Once it was all turned over and freed up, all that was left to do was determine the placement of the plants, and pop all of the various plants in the ground.

As I mentioned, this year we're doing a less formal square foot garden. Whereas last year we had formal dividers and indicators of where the boundaries of each square foot resides, we had a real problem with the squirrels throwing the dividers around. Since knowing what a rough square foot is in our small garden, we went ahead and scrapped the dividers and just went ahead with planting.

This year I decided to plant things that didn't need quite as much of a root structure and did much of their growing above ground. I also opted for heartier vegetables that seem to thrive in our rather wild temperature fluctuations. There was nothing more demoralizing last year than seeing a promising plant wilt in the 100 degree days, completely unable to recover.

We also decided to plant more herbs in the raised bed this year, rather than solely in containers as we've done in previous years.

This year's selection includes:

• Dill
• Basil
• Chives
• Jalapeño Peppers
• Strawberries
• Tomatoes
• Romaine
• Radicchio
• Cabbage
• Broccoli

I placed all of my plants in rough areas where I wanted them to go but didn't put them in the ground right away. I wanted to get everything set up and determine just where each plant should be placed. This way, if I had a change of heart, I'd be able to change the location without needing to dig things back up. This also allowed my outdoor inspector to approve of the locations.

After I had everything in place, I opened up the containers and began placement of the various fruits, veggies, and herbs.

Once all of the plants were in place I used some of the organic gardening soil we picked up at the store to fill in the low spots and build up the area around the plants to create a nice watering bowl around the bases. This will ensure the water goes to the plant rather than rolling away.

I also made sure to place the little tags from the plants in the soil to remind myself of exactly what I had planted and where it was planted. After not doing this the first year, we now make a point of doing this to keep ourselves sane.

After a few hours of effort, some dirt under my fingernails, and quite a bit of inspecting from Lulu, we had ourselves our 2013 garden. I hope it yields some delicious bounty and doesn't fall victim to the squirrels or bugs as it has in years past.

Are you planting a vegetable garden this year? Do you have any tips for us on how to have better results? This is far from our area of expertise, so any tips or tricks are greatly appreciated.

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Ingredients

• 1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 pound spaghetti or angel hair pasta 
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped Italian fresh flat leaf parsley
• 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
• Sea salt or kosher salt
• Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, 1/4 cup or more to taste, freshly grated

Instructions

• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt to water once boiling. 
• Add the spaghetti and cook until al dente, approximately 9 minutes.
• Drain pasta, reserving one cup of pasta water.

• While pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté for one minute or until it sizzles. 

• Add the red pepper flakes. Continue sautéing until the edges of the garlic just begin to brown, about two more minutes. 

• Add reserved cup of pasta water and a pinch of sea salt. Continue cooking for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

• Reduce the heat to medium-low, and add the drained pasta and parsley reserving one tablespoon of parsley. 

• Toss until the pasta has absorbed most of the liquid, about three minutes. 
• Sprinkle remaining tablespoon of parsley as garnish and grate parmesan cheese over top of each serving to taste. Serve immediately. This dish serves 2-4 depending on appetite.

This recipe can be easily customized based on taste, and is a great way to use up other fresh herbs you have on hand or other ingredients in your refrigerator. 

Over the Memorial Day holiday while staying at a friend's home on the Chesapeake Bay, I enhanced this recipe by leaving out the cheese, but adding fresh crab meat, cherry tomatoes, basil, and a hit of fresh lemon. The pasta was a completely different experience, and made for the perfect bayside meal. 

Do you have a go-to pasta dish that's a favorite in your family? Maybe a simple, classic recipe that you like to change up depending on what's in season? I'd love to hear every mouth watering detail. 

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Here's what they looked like last month after planting them....

...and here's a shot of them today. 

Wowza! Planted in these decorative ceramic pots in our small urban backyard are the following:

• Two basil plants (my personal favorite)
• Sage
• Dill
• Oregano
• Cilantro
• Parsley
• Rosemary
• Chives
• Mint

Although we're relishing in our success up to this point, I must admit that we're not completely sure how we'll use our newfound supply of fresh herbs, especially given that they all will be used in vegetarian dishes. (Alex is a vegetarian, so we only prepare/eat vegetarian dishes at home.) In particular, the sage and oregano present the biggest challenge for us, but we're off to a good start. 

I recently made a delicious quinoa salad, recipe below, complemented by an ample supply of fresh chives and basil. If you're looking for a healthy and easy recipe to use some of the fresh herbs you may be growing in your garden this year, I promise you this one's a winner.

Ingredients

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa   
• 2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes, rinsed
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp. white balsamic vinegar (can substitute white wine vinegar)
• 1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 1/4 tsp. fresh cracked black pepper (or to taste)
• 2 tbsp. chopped chives (more or less to taste)
• Optional: 2 tbsp. chopped basil (more or less to taste) or other herb of your liking

Note: Never heard of quinoa? Quinoa, pronounced keen-wah, is a grain popular in South American cuisine and has a very mild, nutty flavor. It's very high in protein, is a good source of fiber, and is gluten free. We eat a lot of it at home in vegetarian dishes as a way to get ample protein. You can find it at most grocery stores these days, including places like Trader Joe's and Costco. If you can't find quinoa or you don't like it, you could swap it out for couscous in this recipe.

Instructions

• Put quinoa in a fine-mesh sieve or fine strainer. Place under cold running water until water runs clear (this eliminates the bitter taste contained in quinoa's coating); drain well. (Or you can buy certain brands of quinoa that are pre-rinsed.) 
• Place rinsed quinoa in a medium saucepan and cover with 2 cups of cold water; bring to a boil over high heat. 

• Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until the grains are translucent and the germ has come out of each grain, about 15 minutes. Cover and remove from heat; let sit for 5 minutes.
• Spoon quinoa into a large bowl and set aside to cool. 
• Meanwhile, cut tomatoes in half. Set tomatoes aside.

• Now it's time for the fun part! Raid your garden for fresh herbs. In this case, the recipe calls for 2 tbsp. fresh chives. So I headed out back with my kitchen shears, and snipped away at the chives until I was satisfied with the quantity. I also noticed how well my basil is doing, so I opted to throw a little of that in today as well.

• In a small bowl or vessel, combine oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Stir well.

• When quinoa is at room temperature, stir in tomatoes.

• Add vinaigrette and fresh herbs and toss again. And voila! You have a quick, easy, light and tasty summer salad on your hands.

Chives and basil aren't your thing? Swap them out for an herb you like or something you may have growing in your garden. 

This summer we're bound and determined to make the most of what our garden is offering up. Alex and I will be researching yummy recipes and delicious uses for all of our herbs.

Do you have a favorite herb from your garden that you've been enjoying so far this season? Do you have a vegetarian recipe for the "uncommon herbs" that you'd like to share? We're always up for trying out a light and fresh warm weather salad.

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Last year we made our first attempt at building a raised bed organic vegetable garden in our back yard. After reading All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew, we felt it was a simplified approach and might be easy enough for black thumbs like us to tackle. So under Lulu's watchful eye, we got to work by first pulling up a small section of bricks to make room for the 10x2 garden, followed by creating the new bed, preparing the soil, selecting the veggies to plant, and popping them in the ground. If you're interested in the whole project from the start, you can read all about last year's three part square foot garden series.

1. First Steps - Selecting the Location
2. Building the Garden Bed
3. Preparing the Soil and Planting

All this hard work left us with a great foundation for our new vegetable plants. Last year we planted cabbage, Ichiban eggplant, spinach, sugar snap peas, kale, chives, lavender, beets, and spring onions. 

We carefully cared for our new green friends all summer long, and truthfully were met with mixed results. The beets died a slow death, the sugar snap peas wilted before their big debut, and the spinach never showed up to the party. Oh, and what we thought was broccoli was actually cabbage, but we didn't know this and just kept waiting for the broccoli to show up. So by the time the black thumb crew realized it, we had even let the cabbage go to waste. Feel free to shake your head in disgust along with us at that one.

On the positive side, the chives and lavender flourished. And we even harvested four eggplants, a couple spring onions, and a good supply of chives and kale throughout the season. In our house, we consider that a modest success for year one. 

And so that brings us to year two. Undeterred by a few flops in 2011 and armed with a year of experience under our tool belts, we set off to get ready for another year of organic square foot gardening. The bed had weathered a bit during the cold months. The white wash isn't as crisp and a few faint cracks in the wood are starting to show. 

Our bigger concern though was the number of roots that had infiltrated the raised bed from below, despite our use of the weed mat. (Is it just me, or are roots the troublemakers in our gardening efforts so far this year?) 

Alex got to work using our handy axe and a few hand tools to break up the soil and began pulling up all of the roots. Since this part of the yard is under the canopy of our large tree that's always looking for water, there's really no preventing root infiltration, so we'll just need to clear them out each season.

Alex was completely shocked byt the amount of roots he pulled from the bed. By the end of the de-rooting, he had three paper grocery bags completely full of roots.

Once the bed was free of roots, we needed to replenish the soil. While we hand intended on doing our own mix, we ran out of time and opted to use several bags of organic soil we had used last year. Alex took care to dig up the remaining living items in the garden for relocation. There's no sense in letting living things that somehow survived us go to waste. At this point, the bed was starting to look good again.

As we did last year, we also added in a good amount of worm castings (yes, that's worm poop) to fully prepare the soil. We also reused the square foot dividers from last year. Though they aren't as sturdy as they were when first assembled, but  they're still the right lengths. We may remake these as the season progresses.

I had previously picked up the vegetables that we wanted for the year -- first, when I was at our local home improvement store buying herbs for our outdoor pots, and then again while we went to Merrifield Garden Center, Groupon in hand, to select the new flowers for our front urns. 

In order to make room for more vegetables, we first consolidated the four chive plants into two squares. Previously they were planted in four squares. Next Alex removed the four lavender plants and transplanted them into a large pot. 

We were all set and ready to go with the new plants. The breakdown of our 20 garden squares is as follows:

• 4 x Brussels sprouts (We are obsessed after all.)
• 4 x Broccoli
• 3 x Cauliflower
• 2 x Zucchini
• 2 x Chives
• 1 x Ichiban Eggplant
• 1 x Leeks
• 1 x Sping Onions
• 1 x Green Beans
• 1 x Cantaloupe (I don't have high hopes for this one, but Alex really had his heart set on a melon.)

Before we even had a chance to get these suckers in the ground, we had a bit of an attack -- a squirrel attack to be exact. Those little buggers attacked my newly planted herbs as well as a few of the vegetables still in the shopping bag! 

Fortunately my little Ichiban eggplant was resilient enough to withstand a night on the cold, hard bricks of our patio. Alex, knowing how anxious I was to plant the veggies before the squirrels could mount another attack, planted all the vegetables while I was out of town on a business trip last week. He did a great job. Here's a look at the finished result.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that we'll be enjoying homegrown vegetables this summer. Between the herbs and these new veggies, I may even try to organize a veggie swap at work for fellow gardeners that have surplus. Think of it as a barter-only farmers market.

What are your thoughts on our garden's chances this year? Like I said, I don't think Alex's precious melon has any hope, but I'm cautiously optimistic for the rest. Are vegetables a part of your gardening efforts this year? Is anyone trying a new vegetable or herb for the first time? What have been your biggest gardening successes an failures over the years? Any tips for us to help us succeed? We sure have a lot to learn.

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The garden project resulted in limited success (what we thought was broccoli turned out to be cabbage, and our spinach and beets were a total flop), but the herbs I planted in nearby pots were off the charts.

Excited by the success of our previous year's venture, I set out last weekend to begin making my herb purchases for the season. I went to our local home improvement store and was somewhat underwhelmed with their selection. My frustration was largely my own fault due to the one item I had my heart set on that we don't have room for. Any guesses...? Why a fig tree of course! 

If only we had the space, I would love to have a fig tree in my yard. I know there are some others around Old Town, but you need at least 20 feet of space for it to grow properly. I guess I'll have to save that dream for the day we're living in Napa Valley. (I'm dreaming here, after all!) 

Once I snapped back to reality, and the reality of our very modestly sized outdoor space, I got serious about what herbs would make the cut this year. 

Some of the choices were easy and were based on items that we've had success with in previous years, like basil and parsley. While others were out of usefulness since I've noticed how much they'll help out in recipes that we tend to enjoy.

The end result of my shopping trip was:

• Sweet basil
• Organo
• Dill
• Cilantro
• Flat leaf Italian parsley

Add this to the sage, rosemary, mint, and chives that came back from last year, and I felt I had a pretty good starting point. I planted the new herbs in my ceramic garden pots with a generous helping of organic potting soil and water. Grow baby, grow!

Remember these photos when we hopefully show you to towering trees of herbs in a few weeks... fingers crossed.

I made sure to evenly space the plantings and allow plenty of room for them to grow. After our very successful herbs last year, I think the adequate room for them to breathe, along with the deep soil in the pots, is extremely important in their overall success.

Have you started planting this year or are you still in the planning phases? Do you have a great recipe I should try out that would incorporate any of my new bounty? I don't know about you, but I see a lot of pasta salads with fresh herbs in my future this summer! 

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