Wow, lavender, tomatoes, cucumbers - sounds like you are not doing as badly as you think, Snarky! Keep up the good work

The not-too-distant future: Snarky the anti-gardener will turn into Snarky the uber-gardener. Then we will see that she'd going to be a guest on Martha Stewart's show, talking about knitting in her amazing garden, which she redesigned and rebuilt herself. It's gonna happen!!!!

Wow, lavender, tomatoes, cucumbers - sounds like you are not doing as badly as you think, Snarky! Keep up the good work

Thank you. The tricky part, of course, will be to see all these veggie bearing plants all the way through to... what's the vegetable version of fruition? Vegetation? Snarky had some "accidental" tomatoes a couple years ago that went from huge, firm, promising green to rotten black without stopping off anywhere near ripe and red in between. She's a bit phobic about the same happening to these intentional ones.

The not-too-distant future: Snarky the anti-gardener will turn into Snarky the uber-gardener. Then we will see that she'd going to be a guest on Martha Stewart's show, talking about knitting in her amazing garden, which she redesigned and rebuilt herself. It's gonna happen!!!!

"Our next guest hails from the Pacific Northwest and has authored the best selling memoir/manual 'Home-on-the-Rangelove: How I learned to stop worrying and love my black thumb'. She claims to all her fans that if she can do it, anyone can, and I think that is a good thing... "

I think gardens are a lot more forgiving than people think... The key is doing a little research beforehand. (And don't count on the people at Lowes or Home Depot to be any help at all)

Figure out which USDA Zone you are in, and use that to help pick your plants. Also, where it says on plant tags full sun/partial sun/shade/etc, those are not set in stone, but a lot of shade plants thrive in partial sun, but when they say a plant needs full sun they probably mean it. So match the plants to the conditions, but don't feel too restricted.

Finally, it sounds like your previous tomatoes had blossom end rot... sprinkle some crushed egg shells around your plants, and kind of rake them into the soil to prevent it on your current tomatoes.

[snipped other useful tips]

Finally, it sounds like your previous tomatoes had blossom end rot... sprinkle some crushed egg shells around your plants, and kind of rake them into the soil to prevent it on your current tomatoes.

Snarky loves this kind of stuff: coffee grounds mixed with water, crushed eggshells, all that stuff. It's like kitchen witchery to her. Thanks for the tips!

And if she can just find that blasted book the Master Gardener friend gave them (it's the Sunset something-or-other for their region) they'll be good as gold. It coveres a lot of information about regional plants and how to maintain them, as well as general tutorials for stuff like proper composting.

The previous homeowners were ambitious, but a bit ill-informed. The Snarks have a "compost pile" in the back corner of the lot that resembles more of a fire hazard/stick pile than anything actually useful.