we planted a garden on our deck in the city

a few posts ago i wrote about wanting to get back to the earth and to the greater outdoors, to be in nature and under the big blue sky a lot more often. part of that has lead us on a journey of eating yummy local produce, but another part of that has lead us here, to planting our own (very!) modest garden! we are lucky enough to live in a quieter neighbourhood with front lawns and towering trees, but we still find ourselves in the middle of the larger sprawling city of toronto. while we often dream of a life further from concrete and closer to forests, until then we have a small deck out back that we've decided we need to take better advantage of. we are complete gardening novices, so this past weekend we called on my parents to come by and help us pick out and plant a few things for the summer. we got our hands dirty :)as a kid i can remember nothing tasting better than on a hot summer day, going round to the side of our house where there was a line of raspberry bushes. when they were perfect they would practically fall off the bush into your hand with almost no effort. dave's told me about how as a teen, he would go on canoe trips out of the summer camp where he worked, and in the mornings they would collect wild blueberries to turn into blueberry crisp over the fire for breakfast. um, hello. the best meals are really the ones you make with your own hands.as i said, we are really not experts, so we had my parents guide us on what to plant that would be a bit easier for us beginners. we planted some cherry and roma tomatoes, a pepper plant, some succulents (can't kill those, right?!), some flowers, and the herbs we use most -- thyme, rosemary, oregano and chives -- as well as a big pot of lettuce leaves. my mum says it's her favourite thing to grow.it feels good to grow things -- already a few little sprouts are bursting through the soil in the pot with the lettuce, and we've even used a few fresh herbs in our dinners this week! it's small, but it does feel pretty satisfying to be able to keep something alive.. if i'm this amazed with plants, just picture me if i'm a parent one day!!so far so good... really loving our new little garden :) it makes us just want to be out there more too, which we're hoping we can do more of this summer (along with me going barefoot more often to get rid of that ridiculous foot farmer's tan i've got going on!). maybe we'll do a little update in a few months and let you know how much of it we have killed ;) haha i joke, but really.