How does your garden grow?

I have always loved the idea of gardens and gardening, but have never considered myself much of a green thumb. I appreciate the beauty of a well kept garden, and I have always liked the idea of growing my own herbs and fruit and vegetables, but it all just seemed like too overwhelming a task to start a garden from scratch.

Now that the kids are older, and now that wholesome, healthy eating has taken a priority in my life, I'm making time to finally get a garden started.

I'm starting small... Keep in mind I am completely new to this, and will probably make plenty of mistakes along the way!

My first garden project was to get some herbs established in pots. I already had some curly leaf and italian parsley growing, as well as some garlic chives and regular chives. On the weekend I bought some more herbs that I think I'll be likely to use regularly, and yesterday I planted them (and did some weeding in and around the pots they were in).

In my first pot I have some oregano, rosemary and thyme. I can smell the rosemary and thyme lamb roast already...

In the second pot I have italian (flat leaf) parsley, curly leaf parsley and chives. The italian parsley and chives I've had here for a while - the parsley gets a lot of use. I thought the chives had died, but they re-emerged, hurrah!

In a smaller pot I have mint chocolate. Not sure what the chocolate part is supposed to mean, but it smells divine!

That's all I have so far (apart from the garlic chives I didn't take a photo of). I'd really like to get some basil growing too, and maybe some coriander. I'm sure I'll keep adding to it as time goes on.

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Now, I said I was starting small, and there's good reason for that... 

This is our backyard. See that big bushy area over near the fence? Weeds. All weeds. That is where the main garden bed is supposed to be and where I'm planning on starting my vegetable garden.

I have some work ahead of me.

Even once the weeds are pulled I'll need to prepare the soil, as it is currently full of sticks, bones (the previous owners had dogs), rocks and random rubbish. In the past this has been what has stopped me from starting a garden, but now I'm kind of excited about the work that lies ahead of me. How satisfying it will be to go from this to a working, edible garden!