Natural garden tips: from deer and rabbit control to lush foliage

Have you started thinking about your garden yet? Have you done any planting? Last summer I started a vegetable garden in containers on my balcony. With a large space outside my bedroom door, I thought it was the perfect option for growing things, since the wildlife down on the ground tends to eat everything in sight. So I planted tomatoes, zucchini, peas, cabbage, 12 varieties of lettuce, mint, parsley, basil, chives, carrots and corn. Surprisingly enough, the corn did well, producing a dozen ears, until one day it got hit with plague of some kind. What a disappointment that was!

But I'm going to give it another try this year. My husband and I bought some seeds over the weekend and I spent Saturday planting snow peas in 4 containers outside and 7 different vegetables and herbs in an indoor mini "greenhouse." As I look out my office window, I can see the pea containers perched on the ledge of the balcony and my mouth waters thinking that in less than 70 days, I'll be steaming them and serving them with a bit of brown butter. Yum. While they haven't begun sprouting yet, the sweet bell peppers and some of the lettuce has. I'll wait another month to plant the silver queen corn and some of the other veggies I bought. After all, I live in western PA where we've been known to have frost in May.