YAY!
My first year of gardening went a lot smoother than expected. To everyone's surprise plants actually grew, fruited and ended up on the kitchen table. Take that, everyone! Bwahaha.
The soil was pretty good and easy to work with since my family has been using it as a flower bed for years. Even the newly dug plot containing my beloved zucchinis was fine. My grandmother's roses attracted numerous beneficial insects to the garden, especially bees. They frequented my garden so often that they quickly became my gardening buddies.
Initial cost of everything from seeds to containers was alarmingly high. Fortunately, my family donated a good amount of potting soil, manure and tools to my little project.
NO!
When I started my little project, my plan was basically "put seeds in soil - tada, tasty food the next day!" Little did I know that an immense amount of planning is required to get the healthiest plants and highest yields. This meant that in the middle of Spring, I had to restart many plants, dig in extra manure and accomplish many other tasks while flipping through all the gardening books I could find at the library.
Harmful insects. Aphids and slugs were the worst, consuming a large portion of eggplant leaves and leafy vegetables. Earwigs didn't do much harm, but their droppings weren't very attractive. Same for fungus gnats, which were harmless but quite a nuisance when dozens of them appeared in the house.
Didn't get the chance to dig everything up before the first snowstorm hit, so I couldn't prepare the garden for winter.
