on gardens

For Mother's Day this year, my husband and daughter gave me a vegetable garden. I've had one most places I've lived since college, but hadn't committed to living on one place long enough to expend the effort since moving to California. Since 'gardener' is one of the first appellations I'll use to describe myself, this has been kind of hard. This year we bit the bullet, turned over the strip of grass next to our patio and planted.

This weekend I'm finally ripping out the tired plants. This being Southern California, the plants have not given up - I harvested 2 zucchinis last week, but it's time to take a rest, turn the whole thing over, and think about the successes (ronde de nice zucchini - I finally got around to trying this and shall never again be without it in a garden) and failures (the heirloom black tomato never produced, which may or may not be better than last year's Brandywines which did, but only fruit with blossom end rot)...what we want to repeat (or not) and what else we might want to try.

I wonder if I could grow saffron crocuses in a pot...