Spring AT LAST!

Well, the weather has been great for awhile now, but I've been distracted with dealing with the chaos that ensues when one leaves eggs to boil on the stove for slightly over an hour while she drops off recycling and goes grocery shopping, remembering that she did so while reaching for a carton of eggs. The house was filled with eggy smoke, fortunately no fire, but a cleaning crew came in and cleaned (and moved around) all of our belongings, all of the clothing and other fabric items were removed from the house, cleaned, and delivered back to us in dry cleaning bags on hangers and in boxes, and, ultimately, our kitchen was repainted completely while much of its usual contents sat in boxes on our living room floor. That said, it could have been much, much worse, and our kitchen looks awesome.

Anyway, so not much gardening has taken place, even on beautiful sunny days, I did not find (or make) time to venture out. It's rather unfortunate, really, because it probably would have done me good.

So, today, on one of the colder, cloudier days in recent memory, we had 4 yards of garden soil mix delivered. With it, we re-filled the raised bed that housed tomatoes last summer, topped off the second raised bed we built late last summer, and expanded our "original" garden bed (in-ground). We also added lots of fresh soil to the small, long beds I put in at the top of our hill along the fence and to our "flower" beds in the front of the house.

The expansion portion of the bed was not dug out. I laid out cardboard, and we mounded soil on top of that. We will see how that works out.

Little baby seedlings are growing in a flat inside. We have a variety of tomatoes and peppers. Ben took the job of seed-starter, and I took notes on how much of what varieties we started and where they were planted. We will start another bunch of seeds in another week or two (melons and a couple of others that are to be started a little later)We wound up germinating seeds twice because of the crazy that settled on our household. We just did not get the first bunch moved into the flats quickly enough. Hopefully, we didn't lose too much time. We hope to avoid buying tomatoes retail this year the interest of trying to avoid the blight that plagued
us (well, our tomatoes, actually) last year.

There were a few things that overwintered in the bed along the house, which doesn't get as much sun as the main garden beds. We have several kale plants, rainbow chard, two broccoli plants and one cabbage. The broccoli and cabbage were eaten up by some seemingly invisible pests last summer, so, perhaps we'll actually have more luck with them while the weather is still cool. I assume we had cabbage worms. All I found were holes and little wet green piles of masticated (and, I assume, digested) leaves.

Gardening Supplies

Ben picked up 2-2 packs of 50 ft. length soaker hoses for 12.99 at Costco yesterday. Total with tax: 27.54

Brrr

We are still in the throes of winter here. Yesterday, my dad, a few hours south of me, posted this picture, saying this is what he saw out his window.

After I sputtered with jealousy, he emailed again, letting me in on his joke:

A ghostly old John Deere. There is some grass peeking through the snow, though. We don't have that here...

First Seed Order of 2010

We have committed ourselves to starting tomatoes from seed to help avoid the blight this year. My dad graciously has detailed his seed-starting methods and even shared an empty flat he had stored in his barn for us to use. I think it would hold something like 96 plants. We won't be starting 96 plants right now, but I suppose we have the option! I have to ask him if I can share it here, because perhaps it is privileged information he hopes to copyright or patent and sell someday. We got some suggestions from a longtime gardening friend of Ben's on tomato varieties that he has had good luck with in this area. I added some peppers. We haven't had great luck with peppers, so didn't even try any last year, but I'm hoping for better luck this year. I plan to do at least some of them in self-watering containers. I went ahead and copied and pasted the whole invoice. Last year, I did not keep track of what we spent, but figure it wouldn't be a bad idea this year. As I told someone else who was feeling guilty about spending on her garden because it didn't end up producing much in the way of food, I think the cost can also be expensed as education, entertainment, and exercise. ;)

00112aBrandywine TomatoPacket 1$2.1000415aKelloggs Breakfast TomatoPacket 1$2.3500418aKentucky Beefsteak TomatoPacket 1$2.2500711aSunsugar Hybrid TomatoPacket 1$2.2503052aMitla Hybrid PepperPacket 1$2.7503093aThai Hot PepperPacket 1$2.3503129AChablis Hybrid PepperPacket 1$2.2503187aMini Belle Mix PepperPacket 1$1.95Subtotal:$18.25Shipping:$4.95Tax:$0.00Total:$23.20

Coming this spring!

Raintree sent an invoice.

We have the following (some I ordered, some were bonuses) coming in the spring:

10 crowns of Jersy Knight asparagus

1 Rosa Rugosa Alba

1 P. aureosulcata Bamboo

1. Rosemary-4 inch pot

1True Grosso Lavender

1 Horsradish

1Fred Boutin Lavender

1 Highbush cranberry

Dirty Laundry

Well, clean, actually. I've been intending since Labor Day to sum up my Clothesline Challenge. From May 29-Labor Day Weekend, I did 108 loads of laundry. Forty-eight of them were line-dried. I didn't quite make my goal of 50%. It was cold and rainy at the end of this summer, and I thought I'd get out and improve my percentage after Labor Day, but, honestly, I didn't. I may have dried 2 or 3 more loads before the weather got yucky.

Other laundry--

I did not count, in these totals, 4 outdoor furniture cushions that I washed in the washer and were dried outside, 4 loads of laundry that Ben did, nor 2 loads of laundry I did at my mother-in-law's house while we were on vacation.

Thoughts--

I love laundry dried on the line. I love seeing the clothes flapping in the breeze. I love seeing the different sizes of my kids clothes all lined up. I love the smell of clothes dried on the line. Tried doing towels, but, yeah, prefer not to. Usually dried those with underwear, etc. in the dryer. I did hang kitchen towels and beach towels. I made my line bigger(it's not attractive) part way into the summer. I have a large-capacity front loader, so a load included a lot of laundry. I would like to get a better line, but what I have works, although I would need a different system in order to really up my percentages. I can't generally dry more than one load at a time, and with 6 people in my house, being able to dry more than one load would be advantageous. Benefits? Yummy-smelling clothes, fewer wrinkles, cooler house, cheaper electric bill, an excuse to be outside.

Pouring through the seed catalogs...

Working to make a realistic plan and not overdo the seed purchases...Everything looks lovely.

On the list, but not specifics yet--

Early season tomatoes in addition to some later ones--we're hoping to start these from seeds this year because it is our understanding that the blight came from the nursery tomatoes.

pickling cukes

potatoes

>>I need to do some research and we need to take some precautionary measures regarding disease with these due to last year's problems. This will include some new soil.

In self-watering containers--

bush cukes

mini eggplants

mini melons

mini bell peppers

basil

Other-

pumpkins of some sort (have a couple of different types of seeds already)

radishes

onions, particularly scallions

garlic

horseradish

thyme

broccoli--probably a couple different varieties

cauliflower

lettuce

spinach

turnips

carrots

sunflowers

snap peas

peas

peppers

---again need to do research here--we've never had good luck with peas or peppers. I'm hoping a self-watering container will help with the peppers.

flowers/herbs (some for companion planting)

borage

nasturtiums

sunflowers

poppies (a couple varieties--we love these)

hollyhock

calendula

lavender

Hoping our perennials come back strong this spring.

We also have some other things coming this spring that I ordered back in July from Raintree. I have an email in to them to confirm what's coming, because I can't remember anymore, LOL.