We’ve planted gardens in the past—usually perennial flowers that come back year after year. We had this one rock garden that made me so happy every spring, the way that the flowers just magically appeared when it was time. I still miss it.

We have also had vegetable gardens that flourished. We didn’t do much besides plant the seeds and install a drip line. (Since then, I have become aware that most vegetable gardens require more tending than that. We just got lucky, I guess? It’s a mystery.) But while we have planted flowers in our current house, we haven’t started a vegetable garden yet: the way that electrical and cable lines were installed before we got here, we can’t dig in the only spot available for the garden.

But we have a dream! So we have done the following.

• Looked up raised garden containers.
• Found covers for the raised garden containers because: squirrels and beetles.
• Figured out how much garden soil we would need.
• Researched which things to plant together and which things to avoid planting together.
• Measured the space in the backyard to determine container layout.

To date, however, we have only completed phase one: we bought packets of seeds.

If we move on to phase two—all the other things in the list above—what suggestions do you have for us? OR what would you plant in a garden if you could?

(If this doesn’t work out, we can always go back to the rock garden. But one can’t eat rocks, so that plan does have its drawbacks.)