Di, stop judging your adequacy as a person by your productivity, dammit! Just be. You're not in denial. Nobody is going to think you're "all better now" just because you're working in the garden, and any guilt you have belongs in the bottom of your compost heap where it can rot into something better. Easier said than done I know. But I do wish you'd be less harsh on yourself. Rant over. You are as beautiful as you are loved, and I hope that the nurturing of life around you helps you to continue to heal. You'll never turn off the grief like a switch... it's just a new part of you... As for gardening activities, I'm going a bit frantic myself. Mostly because spring and early summer are make-it-or-break-it times for those of us in colder climes and there are certain things that just need to be done. But they mostly got done. My fingerprint is now clearly visible on our yard. It has come a long way from the 30-some nasty spirea, 5 unkempt and gianormous pontentilla, and swaths of rock and landscape cloth that greeted me when we moved in. The perennials I planted are really coming into their own, and I beam with pride when people stop to ask me about plants or for advice in their own gardens. I almost typed that I had hardly planted anything at all this season... and then I realized that I've put at least 500 individual plants into the dirt, and have no clue how many seeds I've planted. I suppose that's "hardly anything at all" compared to what I've been doing the last few years though... I'll always have a bit of grass because the dogs (ours and the neighbors who come over daily to play) need space to poop and romp, but I'm using Steve's love affair with his ridiculously oversized riding mower to justify a nearly constant expansion of my planting beds. As much as I dislike that mower, I owe many a bed to its lousy cornering capability! ;o) I am well pleased with last year's rain barrel project, and would heartily recommend them to anyone who is struggling with feast and famine rains. I have a total of 220 gallons of capacity, and a half an hour's worth of rain will fill my barrels to the brim. The drip irrigation system I built for them last year made watering a couple beds completely effortless. I can't say enough nice things about them and am grateful to Leaveswave for the guidance. Of course my neighbor is laughing her butt off at me for my planting idiosyncrasies. I have a bad habit of "not wasting" seedlings. Who is she to say that 45 hot pepper plants is too many (for a woman with a low tolerance for "hot")? I think I showed restraint by not planting all 150 that I started! (She's also laughing because my labels washed off when I was hardening the plants off and I have both "Bulgarian Carrot" peppers and "Tequila Sunrise" peppers... they look nearly identical and now I don't know what's where, so I'll be playing Capsicum Roulette come harvest time!) And I "only" planted sixteen eggplants, ten tomatoes, and who-knows-how-many beans, peas, cukes, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuces, spinach, radishes, and chard... I planted so much in my raised and expanded beds this year that I decided herbs can grow just fine in the flower beds. I'm not sure if that's a form of denial, or a nod to French Potagers... (I'll probably claim the latter, but know secretly it's due to my lack of horticultural restraint.) I have several plants each of rosemary, thyme, sweet marjoram, basil, parsley, oregano, cilantro, dill, and mint (the mint lives in strictly-policed holeless, sunken pots). But I hardly grow any vegetables and herbs at all. I'm mostly a flower gardener... (sigh... restraint is for sissies...)

I always grow my mints in pots because I am afraid to allow them the freedom of open ground. Every fall I sink them into a raised veggie bed and they always come back. I dug up some Cimicifuga in the fall because it wasn't doing well in an area that was not moist enough, I assume. We didn't get to replant before winter and they spent the entire winter above ground in a pot on the north side of a stockade fence and happily came back! Terrene...have you ever tried Lavender Lady? That is the only one that grows for me. I've had some for a long time and I wintersowed more in 2007 and not only did they come back, but the base of the stems was full of new growth very early this year. I am surprised, Linnea, if you have a problem with Sedum Purple Emperor. Mine came through the winter. In the past, I have left Autumn Joy outside all winter in pots near my front steps where water would drip into them and freeze into a solid block, then thaw and repeat and in the spring would fill with water for days before it thawed out completely. I was shocked that they survived this treatment year after year. I consider Sedum AJ to be indestructible...lol, and thought it applied to all sedums. Not sure about the PEmperor. pm2

Your garden is beautiful so great, I loved your explanations very easy to understand. Best of luck with your wonderful garden. I have been thinking about doing this myself I did stock up in the weed block cloth at the end of the season last year. Please keep us posted on how well it works for you. We have had a record breaking winter this year I am so ready for Springtime, and Summer.

Hi! Welcome to the forum. Since you don't have much prep time this year, you'll need to get busy pretty quickly. Probably don't have much time for a soil test and may need to wing it. You don't say. Is the garden in full sun? If so, I'd start small with warm season crops, maybe do some fall crops as well, but mainly work on summer crops this year and prepare your soil for a bigger garden and more crops next year. You can conceivably get three crops out of a garden in Oklahoma, but you want to prepare your soil first. DO NOT use fresh manure in your soil if you are getting ready to plant as it will be too "hot" and will burn your plants. It will also bring weed seeds in that you don't want. One of the best books I've ever owned is the Encyclopedia Of Organic Gardening. It was the first book I ever bought and was my bible for many years, so I highly recommend it. The following crops are cool season and will bolt (grow to quickly and quit producing) quickly when the weather gets warm, which it seems to be doing very quickly this year. I'd save these for fall planting or for next spring: radishes, spinach, carrots and broccoli. The rest can be planted between now and the second week of May. You could actually plant some beans every week, just to ensure that you don't have a big flood of beans and then none for the rest of the summer. Interplanting, or companion planting in wide, slightly raised rows that are wide enough that you can reach the center from either side is a good plan. You can and perhaps should first dig up the plot with a shovel and remove the weeds before tilling in plenty of good quality, weed free compost. Till north to south and then east to west, to be sure you get the compost tilled in very well. Once you have the entire garden tilled, rake the soil into beds and leave paths between the rows the same width as your rows. Lay down clean straw, black and white pages of newspaper, old carpet remnants, or purchased cedar mulch about 4-6 inches deep in the paths. Rake the beds nicely so you don't have any big clods. Then you can either plant seeds or put in transplants. When you buy your green beans, be sure you also buy innoculant and follow the directions on its use. Horns or TLC or any good nursery or coop will tell you why you need to use this. Also buy bush beans and bush type squash and pumpkin. You will have plenty of vines all over your garden with just the watermelon! Within the beds, hill up the soil and plant a couple or three squash or pumpkin seeds, about five bean seeds and a corn seed or two all in the same hill at the correct depth on the seed packets. Plan on planting at least a dozen or so hills, about two-three feet apart, and realize that you will probably have to flood irrigate the hills, so make little motes around each hill. Planting all these together is good for a couple of reasons. Corn is a heavy feeder and so are squash and pumpkin. They use up a lot of nitrogen. Planting the beans with them helps fixate nitrogen into the soil so both squash and corn grow better. And, often one plant will offer insect repellant for another. Planting Guardian marigolds in among your plants, for example, will help ward off some bugs. Interplanting with garlic and onions and chives is good as well, although onions and chives need to be planted early and garlic has to be planted in the fall. Interplanting like this, with these particular crops, is a tried and true Native American method that really works. Using fish emulsion mixed with water to fertilze the corn and squash will also help. Native Americans also used to put a dead fish deep in each hill. This provided nitrogen for the plants as they grew. Unless you have very sandy soil or want to add sand to a bed, the watermelon may have a tough time in clay. I would put it into one end of your garden. Watermelon also grows best in hills with motes, with three or four seeds to each hill. You may want to thin these if they all sprout and grow, down to one or two plants. If a heavy rain is predicted after you plant and before anythig sprouts, you might want to put a little light mulch on top of the hills just to keep the seed from washing away. Once the plants are up and growing well, you'll want to mulch with clean straw so that the moisture stays in the soil and the veggies stay up off the ground. Squash, watermelon and pumpkin take a lot of water and so does corn. And, so do cucumbers, or cukes. Cukes also need rich, deep soil. If you have a wire fence, dig about two feet down and add plenty of compost to form a good, deep bed along that fence and let the cukes grow up it. They, too, will need lots of water. You could also grow bush type cukes if you don't want to mess with growing them up the fence or providing a trellis. Hope all this helps! I'm sure you'll receive plenty of other suggestions. Google for the veggies you want to grow for other tips as well and fork out a little cash for some good, basic veggie gardening books to help you identify things like squash bugs, cucumber beetles and corn worms and learn what to do about them. At the end of the summer, you can plant some cool season crops and see how they do. Next year, plant in this season's beds and walk in this season's paths. Rotating beds and crops will keep you from wearing out the soil and will cut down on pests. Planting a fall crop of winter rye and tilling it in early as green mulch is also a great way to improve your soil. Again, DO NOT use green manure on your garden at this time of year. It probably has all sorts of weed seeds in it and will burn your plants. Start a compost pile now that will "cook" the weed seeds and make compost for your use next season. Have a soil test done next fall or spring as well, just so you know what you may need to add next eyar to improve your soil. Good luck! jp