This is the time of year that I get really excited about gardening. Most likely this is because the memories of my failures of last year have paled during the winter and partly because there are green things sprouting all over the place all of their own volition. I have to remind myself that just because something is green and growing doesn’t necessarily mean it going to be a beneficial thing. Funny as it is even weeds can be inspiring.
It’s a sign of the coming spring and that makes me happy. It means we are close to planting and I need to get my seeds out, organized and started.
This year I plan on NOT failing my seedlings! A friend of mine has a greenhouse and has offered to start some seeds for me, since she is doing her own in there anyway. She says its as easy as flipping a switch when she goes out to do chores each day so I’m taking her up on it. I’ve got two flats of soil prepped and ready with the seeds. OH, HAPPINESS!
My sweet lover has also been in the mood for farming. He has gotten 2 loads of compost, and one load of manure, delivered and tilled into the ground.
Our lettuce be is sending up a handful of volunteers amongst the carrots we’ve planted, ‘and the peas and safely tucked in their beds. I am resisting the urge to go dig one up avery few hours to see if they’ve begun to sprout.
I’m hoping to keep up my enthusiasm and not sequester myself in the air-conditioned house once it gets really hot out there. For now, I refuse to think about those couple months of heat over a hundred degrees. For now, I’m happy in today, thankful for today.
Happy First Day of Spring!
Hello. I wanted to post a picture of our garden before everything gets into full swing. We have our lettuce bed there behind the irises doing well. It sure doesn’t look like much of a lettuce bed, but I’ll tell you what, that is plenty for our family of 9 to harvest enough for 2 meals a week. We’ve been using it for burritos and tacos, taco salad, and regular green salads. So, plenty plenty. I’ll remember, for next year, to plant in several installments, rather than all at once.
My irises have done very well this year. Last year I planted them the summer before last and then in the spring and they weren’t really established, but this year I’ve had just hundreds of blooms. I love them.
The fruit and nut trees survived the late frost, so we will have fruit. THe nut trees are still very young so I doubt we’ll get anything from them for a bit, yet. But still, it’s exciting to see them flourishing in new leafiness.
I neglected my starts and all my baby plants died one warm day while we were out and about. Normally I’m home and would have remembered to water, but well, there is no excuse and they’re all dead. SO, we bought a few varieties of tomatoes and peppers, and a few herbs from the nursery, and replanted some of the not-so-cool-weather plants from seed. I think we’ve missed the window for cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts and cabbage. The peas are doing well and blossoming already. So hopefully soon we’ll have peas for our stirfy! Also a new thing this year: we planted the entire front yard in popcorn. Should be a fun harvest for the kids. I don’t know how well our neighbors will like our new landscaping plan, but so what. We are in a pretty laid-back area, so I’m hoping people will laugh and not make waves over it. Wes built a drip system out of a piece of pvc pipe, drilled with holes at the spacing of our rows. It’s wonderful.
Chas has a tutorial on growing potatoes. If I can get hold of some seed potatoes I’m going to try it. Thanks Chas!
Have a gorgeous day!
Well, Rachel inspired me to try out vermiculture, or worm composting.
So I got some worms from a lady in my neighborhood that uses this method to compost the manure from her sheep pen.
Here are some pictures of me making a home for them:
Drilling air holes. Power tools are for women too.
Here, I’ve put in a bit of shredded paper.
Then, I added some bits of cardboard, and some broken twigs that I cut out of the Autumn Aster bed.
I had some helpers breaking up the aster stems. Don’t you love the “garden” gloves they found to use while helping me? My children are Adorable!
I mixed this all up added some water till it was nice and mushy, but not too sloppy (we don’t want our little fellas to drown now do we?) On top of all this I added a few big gobs of straw/manure from the chicken coup, more water. And then, I popped the lid on and set it in the sun so it’ll get nice and steamy and ready for the worms.
In the meantime, while they are waiting for their big farmhouse, they’ll have to settle for a small townhome under my kitchen sink. I’ve added a little bit of straw stuff, an apple core and a tea bag, just till the bin is ready. You can see one of the little guys on the far rim of the container. Woohoo.
Here are the worms. They are not regular nightcrawlers or earth worms you buy in a bait shop. These are composting worms called redworms, aka red wrigglers.
So that’s my fun Saturday project… yes still it counts as school.
Here’s the flower bed I put in a few summers ago. The irises are doing well. I’m really pleased with the way it’s turning out. Later in the summer the sage bushes will be flowering the prettiest dusky purple with honey bees buzzing all over it. I love it!
This is the trellis that Wes built for me for Mother’s Day last year. Shame on me! I haven’t sealed it yet. That was the deal: he built it, I was to seal it. I need to get some linseed oil soon!
This is our peach tree blossoming. Last year we had a cold spell that froze all the blossoms and we didn’t get a single peach. I’m hoping that we are past all that for this year. We’ve been watching the forecast just in case. The weather has been so nice, but we had a couple cold nights this week. For a few nights, we covered the trees with tarps and pulled extension cords to dangle a light bulb over a branch beneath the tarp, hoping to avoid the catastrophe of last year. Keeping our fingers crossed.
This is our lettuce bed. The rebar dome is for the plastic we used to create a mini greenhouse type of situation. Since lettuce is a cool weather plant we started it super early. Once it starts warming up in the desert it doesn’t stop. We’ll hit over a hundred degrees way too soon for lettuce to mature if we wait for the last frost date. Behind this box you can see the other boxes with beets, spinich and other misc. good things in the ground waiting to peep out. To the left you can see Wes watering the baby peas. YEAH!
