My love affair with begonias, especially the rex varieties, began about four years ago. I was toddling around the supermarket during my lunch break and wandered into the plant section where to my amazement and delight, there was a display of ornate plants with colorful, unusual leaves. I asked the cool teen who worked there what they were and she just sort of shrugged, said she wasn’t really sure, and went back to unpacking boxes of plants and listening to her mp3 player. I scomped up the plant, marked only “China Curl” and sashayed on over to the checkout. Since I used my loyalty card I got a dollar off, too. How exciting. $4.99 later I was the proud new owner of my very first begonia rex.

Since then I’ve taken several cuttings from that plant, including this one, which finally has a big honking leaf.

A few months later during a field trip to a plant show, I purchased several more plants, including “Black beauty.” It’s probably one of my favorites.

“Baby Dress”, a diminutive begonia rex with curly leaves. I bet this one would be good for a terrarium.

“Baba Lou” is fairly compact and has dark, hairy leaves.

And lovely polka dotted flowers.

I’m not sure what variety this one is. I found it at a tag sale, of all places. An elderly lady was selling planters, and some of them still had tiny half-alive plants melting into the bone-dry soil. At that point the leaves were so small that I couldn’t even tell what it was. But for $1.50 I got a cute McCoy planter and a mystery plant. With time, TLC and repotting it grew almost a foot tall and has lush, vibrant foliage.

Love the colors on this one. And bonus, it has Barbie pink flowers.

Begonia Partita. Note the delicate and lovely white blooms.

A while back I planted some tom thumb carrot seeds in a window box in the sun room. The other day I noticed that they finally had little orange shoulders poking through the soil! So I yanked out a few like a reckless heathen.

All washed up and ready to snarf.

They are supposed to be dwarf carrots, however, I did pick them just a *wee* bit early so they’re more like micro carrots. How, um, fancy pants and gourmet? Ok, not really, but this was actually my first time successfully growing carrots indoors so I’m going to consider this a personal victory.

Meanwhile, the outdoor garden has been growing like mad. Our heirloom tomato plants in the raised beds have more than doubled in size in the last few weeks and many of them are already reaching the top of the cages.

And there are lots of bright yellow flowers, but no wee tomatoes. Yet. There are 20 plants spread throughout a couple of raised beds so if all goes well, there should be plenty to enjoy and share with family and chums.

Of course it’s just nice to see the plants so lush and healthy, especially after last years east coast tomato blight that wiped out most home and many commercial gardeners crops. This summers recent heat wave is certainly helping everything along, as are the subsequent rains, so hopefully it’ll be a better year for maters.

Flowers abound on our three Italian zucchini plants, too.

And despite the fact that bugs seem to be sporadically snacking on the leaves, the baby marbled eggplant is coming along nicely.

Watermelon plants! These are an heirloom variety called “Moon and stars” and it’s the VanDoren strain, so it’s supposedly the good stuff. One thing that’s mighty neato keen about moon and starts watermelon is that both the rind of the fruit and the foliage is dark green with yellow spots all over. I’ve grown these plants before but without fail, groundhogs have eaten them down to the roots. Hopefully this year will be different? Fingers crossed.

Also planted but not pictured: basil, sweet peppers and silver queen corn

Last spring, for the first time ever, I didn’t have much of a garden. I was very pregnant, horribly uncomfortable and nearly big enough to block the sun and have my very own gravitational pull. Meanwhile, my unborn daughter was busy using my ribcage for kickball practice. Did I mention the heartburn? And if one more inconsiderate dolt came up to me and said “you haven’t had that baby YET?” or “Are you sure you’re not having twins!?” there was a good chance they’d be found on the side of a deserted road, mysteriously strangled by breast pump tubing.

In other words, the circumstances were not ideal for planting a garden.

I did manage to start some tomatoes and peppers for my folks and the in-laws and a few basil plants for the greenhouse. Sadly, nearly everything croaked thanks to all of the rain and the massive tomato blight in the northeast. Insert big huge heavy-hearted sigh here.

So when this spring rolled around I went all out. Grew tons and tons of herb and veggie seedlings and filled my little greenhouse to the brim with plants in containers. There are also three full raised beds outdoors with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash and basil.

Here are just a few photos of the leafy goodness! Obviously, many more to come as the season progresses. The photos were taken with my swell new Nikon 3000. Hooray for entering into the wonderful world of SLR cameras! Is it possible to be in love with a camera? Cause sometimes I just want to buy it a drink and cuddle.

Gourmet mini carrots, grown in a windowbox.

Tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings ready to be planted.

A pepper seedling, up close and personal.

A teeny, tiny cucumber that has just begun to form.

Genovese Italian basil. In a few more weeks, homemade pesto here we come!

Thai basil.

Mrs.Burns basil, an heirloom variety.

Dwarf Greek basil.

Sage.

Italian flat-leaf Parsley. I’ve been using it just about every day.

Dill.

Rosemary seedlings. It was my first time growing rosemary from seed and let me tell you, it is painfully slow growing! But once it gets established it’s all good. And it smells amazing!

Fresh oregano is *so* much better on homemade pizza than the dry stuff. And luckily my little oregano plant keeps growing like a weed.

Sweet Marjoram. Holy crap, this stuff is growing like crazy. And of course I have no idea how to cook with it. Any suggestions?

Catnip grown just for the Kittyman. His sister furball, Lucy, does not care to partake in the green stuff.

Last spring I found a Smith and Hawkin mint kit at a tag sale, new in the box. Planted it a few months ago and the mint, peppermint and spearmint sprouts abound!

Chocolate mint, the only thing in my veggie and herb garden not started from seed.

A wild bunny who lives under our greenhouse with its family. They just had babies and I can hear the wee tots cooing just about every time I water the plants. So cute! Last year we had stray kittens, this year, bunnies. Can’t imagine who is going to take up residence next summer…