By Chrisanne Sikora
Social Media Coordinator 

One of the best things about summer (to me, anyway) is the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables.  There’s nothing better than the sweet taste of an ear of corn on the cob, or a dish of fresh strawberries for dessert.  But probably my favorite thing about summer is making a fresh garden salad to go with dinner—in fact many nights dinner is a salad.  My neighbor has a little garden and she’s shared with my family some of the vegetables she’s grown.  The cucumbers she brought over one year were bigger than anything seen in the supermarket, the tomatoes amazingly sweet and juicy.  Seeing what my neighbor’s garden produces and talking with some of my coworkers about gardening has inspired me to try growing some vegetables of my own. 

There’s just one problem:  I’m not a gardener.  Sure I have a few houseplants, but they’re pretty low-maintenance.  I water them once a week and they’re left to themselves the rest of the time (I think they prefer it that way, actually).  But, I’m willing to give this a shot and try growing some cherry tomatoes. 

I filled these two trays with potting soil and planted my seeds.  Since it’s so early in the season (and I’m using seeds rather than seedlings), I’m starting them indoors first.  These trays fit inside a little greenhouse.  When my tomato plants are big enough, they’ll be transplanted in the back yard.  

After planting my seeds I brought the trays back inside, sprayed the soil with a little water until it was nice and moist, and put on the cover.  The greenhouse is on the floor of my kitchen, right next to a window so the seedlings will have plenty of sunlight once they start growing.  In a few weeks I’ll have my own home grown tomatoes I can toss into my salad right from the vine.

Check back later to see how my home gardening experiment is coming along.  In the meantime, if you have any words of advice on growing vegetables, leave a message in the comments section.