It was so nice on Saturday that I gave into the urge to start some flats of vegetable seeds. I started 30 onions, 12 leeks, 6 melons, 6 watermelons, 6 green peppers and 12 Jalapeno peppers in one flat. In the other flat I started 72 tomatoes (3 different varieties). At first glance, one would think that I don't have enough pepper plants to make salsa if my tomatoes do half decent. With a glance in my freezer, you would understand why I didn't plant more peppers; there are a couple of gallon bags full of different peppers that were grown 2 years ago. The only reason I am growing Jalapenos is that I didn't grow any of them the season I froze all the peppers; all the frozen peppers are hotter than Jalapenos and I wanted something just a bit milder in my larder.
I also started a 36" long planter box with some lettuce, spinach and chard. The planter will stay on the deck where it is easy to get to the leafy greens (and the Wonderful Spouce won't mistake them for weeds). Since these are cool weather crops, I didn't put them in the greenhouse with the rest of the starts.
I rounded out Saturday's planting by starting other planters with mixes of phlox (the tall annual variety), bachelor's buttons, tithonia and marigolds.
While the sun was still out, I took a walk around the yard (the part that wasn't under snow anyway) and found that the bulbs I planted last fall are starting to poke out little green shoots. Some of the forsythia have swollen buds, meaning they should start blooming relatively soon. The other forsythia are in constant shade, and still covered by snow so they will lag behind a bit.
Most of the ground cover that I planted between stepping stones (by the planter boxes below the fence) did extremely well and continued to spread even after the snow covered them up. I am really pleased as this is in an area that drains a lot of water from the upper yard, and the ground cover is mainly there for erosion control.
That is it for the tour of the yard for now, there is more I could write about, but suffice it to say that I think most of the work that we did in the yard last summer seems to be holding up pretty well except the honeysuckle bush that the dogs ate - maybe it will send up more shoots from the roots. If that's the worst that happened, I can live with it!
I love to hear about your gardening. Your descriptions help me to see what's happening, so I feel much less left out. Perhaps next year, I shall have a garden of my very own. Or at least a planter box. Of course, being in ehduhmonton, I won't be able to start plants until, oh, end of July, so I'll still need your help through these long spring months!
Posted by: Essay | March 29, 2004 at 10:57 PM
I too love to read about gardening, but sometimes it just drives me mad reading about people in Texas that start their gardens in February!
Posted by: bogie | March 30, 2004 at 07:14 AM