STRAWBERRY!

Thanks to yaquigrande and vrtlaricaana for following my blog!

I still need to take some updated pictures, but this is some exciting news to share. My first strawberry!!

Here is a picture of the garden after I cleaned up some of the maple seeds. There is a pretty definitive line where I wore out. It rained again last night, so I'm sure I'll have more to clean up, but by the looks of it, the trees are almost finished.

My in-laws come in from PA this weekend, so I've got to get a lot done before that can happen! I'd like to have the tomatoes in the ground, but I still need to go buy some stakes of some sort. We also need to add the four or five bags of used coffee grounds to the compost pile that have slowly accumulated on the patio. Here's to getting some work done!

Harvest Monday

Yay! I have more radishes! I've picked more since I took this picture. I need to do a full update soon. I went to PA for a wedding this weekend, and it rained the whole time I was gone. I can't even believe the amount of growth my lettuce, peas, and broccoli went through while I was gone!
Here are just a few more things I came home to from the weekend. I took this for the picture of the broccoli, but this just shows you the project I'll be tackling now. I'm going to try to go pick up all of the helicopter seeds that have completely littered my garden.

I also found an egg shell on the porch, and this is what I found when I took the picture of the nest!

Join in on the Harvest fun over at Daphne's Dandelions!

In the Garden

Thanks Gretchen for following my blog!

Just a few updates. I was looking back through some pictures so far, and can't believe how quickly things grow. My peas have grown between 5 and 10 inches in the past 9 days, depending on the plant!

My broccoli seems to have finally recovered from the sunburn I allowed early on. The same plants that I put into my friends' gardens look way better than mine since they were not transplanted and sun burnt all at the same time. You live and learn. I still think they'll do alright.

My lettuce seems to finally have shown some growth! This picture is a bit misleading, because there are two plants right next to each other that I haven't thinned out yet, but even still, the growth is there!

If you can tell the weeds from the yellowed baby spinach seedlings, you'll see they haven't grown in at least a month. I'm pulling them today. I think I'll attempt spinach in only one of the blocks again. I'll do cilantro in the other one. I don't want to waste precious real estate on the spinach if they aren't going to produce. My friend's garden that I helped her plant already has several leaves on her spinach and hers were planted after mine. Not sure what I did wrong.

We've got a bird's nest on our front porch that we found the past week. I'm thrilled, though my husband not so much. I'm a big fan of robins; he doesn't want poop on the porch. Here is another perk to having a 6'6" 19 year old living in my house... :) I got this picture!

My very first Harvest Monday

Here it is! A tad premature, but I ate it anyway! I left the other ones in the ground. Hopefully in the next couple of days they'll be ready!

Strawberry Blossom!

**MrsS Thanks for following my blog!

Not a ton to say today.

I have my first strawberry blossom though!! Still back and forth on whether or not to pick it. I don't think the delayed gratification thing is going to fly with my strawberries, we'll see.

My peppers that desperately needed potting up were all potted up today. For some reason the seeds in the bottom right didn't do so hot. They are the same as the ones in the back, but a different section from my Jiffy peat pellets, strange. All of these were planted the same day.

And, when I potted up the last of my tomatoes the other day, I also had to do the job of thinning them. I had never gotten around to it. I'm not a very good "seed saver" in that I don't do any special storing (they get stuck in a plastic bag and thrown into a cabinet) so I double planted all of my tomatoes and my peppers. I waited so long to pot them up, that I had full blown plants growing out of a peat pellet. I decided to try to see if some would root, and sure enough 3 Big Boy, and 4 Roma plants were saved since they sent out roots. Those were potted up today too. The end.

Looks pretty cool if you ask me!

Compost Competition!

Among other gardening things done today, (water, weeding, feeding, etc) when I got home from my nanny gig, my husband and I went out to look at the compost pile. He was commenting on how hot it was when he got home, so I went over to check it myself. I told him we could check it with our meat thermometer, and he said do you want to take a picture of it and put it on your blog? I immediately said that EG does that sometimes. He looked at me kind of funny and said 'EG'? He said that it was funny that I said it so nonchalantly, as if he knew who I was talking about. In reality, he would have known exactly who I was talking about if I would have said "Engineered Garden Guy" which is the nickname I've used this past year and a half when talking to my husband when referring to EG's blog. That I slipped and used the common blogger nickname made the situation funny. ANYWAY, I ran into the house and got the thermometer, and checked the part of the pile we were looking at, and it sat right at 134 degrees Fahrenheit. My husband was pretty impressed, as was I, since we had never actually checked how hot it was getting. I then said, "EG's sometimes gets his compost pile up in the 150's-160's range" and my husband said, "Oh yeah? I'll find 150!" This time he made ME laugh. So there's the compost competition. Here it is: Just under 150 degrees. Kind of hard to see.

My husband said he'd probably find hotter, and that we just needed a longer thermometer. He's normally not the competitive type, but that just made me smile!

SUNday!

Thanks for following my blog Jeni!

Beautiful weather continues! Highs in the low-mid 80s for the next five days, along with several days with the lows in the 60s! Can't beat that, although I think my lettuce/spinach is suffering because of the heat. It hasn't really done ANYTHING for a good two weeks now!

I FINALLY potted up all of the rest of my tomatoes. I don't get the newspaper, so I was using ads that we got in the mail, and any newspaper I could bum from a friend. I made the pots on Thursday, and finally finished potting them all up last evening. I was pretty whiny by the end of it. That's what I get for way over planting. I figure I can sell the ones I'm not giving to my friends, and maybe make a few bucks for next year's garden. I think all in all I have 93 tomato plants. I was asked in a comment which varieties so I'll put that here too... I'm growing Big Boy, Brandywine, Caspian Pink, Delicious, Green Zebra, Jubilee Yellow, Margherita Hybrid, Pineapple, Roma, Striped Paste, Super Beefsteak, Sweet 100, and Sweet Million.

Here is a picture of my right side radishes, first and second sowing.

I planted a mesclun mix in this area last year, and this has volunteered itself. I thought these were so interesting last year, but I never had the heart to harvest them, and I was a little nervous to eat them anyway!

My peas are still doing well! I showed my husband this picture, and he said that the picture I took make them look like giants even though they are all of 7 inches tall. He doesn't think they are this impressive. I like them anyway.

Our yard is loaded with ivy once you pass the tree, and so right now our backyard is loaded with these little purple flowers. I would much rather have grass throughout, but these little purple guys are tolerable! As are the few dandelions, I know they are weeds, but they can be pretty in their own way! (Just don't get in my garden!)

My husband and I spent Friday's Date Night at Home Depot searching for plants to do some sort of landscaping in our front yard which is completely bare. I felt sort of overwhelmed because I really would have liked to have a plan drawn out and ready before we went shopping. This is what we came up with so far. I didn't want to overbuy without a clearer picture of what we were going to do.

Today is my little sister's 22 birthday! She doesn't read this blog, but Happy Birthday to her anyway! Lastly, this is Solomon working on a tomato for breakfast!

Soakin' up the Sun!

Thanks for following my blog Dan!

Just wanted to post a little picture from today! If you look closely, you can see that I haven't been too good about rotating my tomato plants under the lights - there is a strip of darker green which is the tomatoes closest to the lights! They are going to be hardened off over the next week, so I'm not really going to worry about moving them around, the rest will catch up.

I set them outside for about an hour yesterday, and had them out for two and a half today, and they seem to be tolerating it well so far. I have really done a number on some tomatoes in the past by being overeager to get them outside. I'm trying to be patient! Off to hang out with some kiddos for the afternoon, and hopefully get some sun myself!

Seedling Update

Thanks to Amy and Sunny for following my blog!

I've worked the past two nights (and my LAST two for a WHILE!) and while I've gotten to check on my garden, I haven't really had a chance to do much else. The weather has been phenomenal. It's supposed to drop tonight, with a high of 59 tomorrow, but back into the 70s by Saturday, and everyday for the next week after that!

My tomatoes are itching to get outside! My peppers are taking off, and will be potted up soon

(if I have ANY room left!) I've got to go buy some more potting soil to fill my newspaper pots because I ran out. I've planted my yellow squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, watermelon, and cantaloupe all inside in

newspaper pots, and all but four or five of them have sprouted and the only ones that haven't are the yellow squash and one or two of the zucchini. I plan on planting a few extras straight in the garden when the time is right, but I figured if I could get a head start, it wouldn't hurt, especially since I won't even be coming close to using a whole seed packet! I'm especially excited about my Moon & Stars watermelon variety that I'm trying this year!

Here are a couple of side by sides from four days apart. (April 3-April 7)

I think I'm going to start hardening off my tomatoes next week. I'll finally have the time home to be carting them in and out, and the weather couldn't be nicer. I don't have 30 some milk gallons though, in the event of a frost, so I'll have to figure something out... I'm also going to have to figure out something to stake them with this year, I really want to do that when I plant them this time! I didn't do it right away last year, because I was unsure if my plants would even make it, they'd been purple and had shown no sign of growth for a while when I stuck them in the ground last year. Not staking tomatoes made for a REALLY messy garden. I spent several hours late in the season tying my vines up with one by twos just to try to get them off the ground, after we'd lost several to something that dug into the garden and was getting to them from the bottom.

I planted radishes on both ends of the garden, and though one side sprouted earlier than the other, it is significantly behind the other in terms of growth. I also can't figure out why I don't have any growth on my spinach or lettuce. Could it be the heat? Do I need to be feeding them with something? I was hoping that stuff would take off, and it just really hasn't.

Left Side

Right Side

Peas are still doing beautifully, as are the strawberries!

It was supposed to storm today, but that didn't really ever happen, so I'm going to go spend some time outside enjoying the new and refreshing green!

Things are getting greener! Happy Gardening to all!

Gorgeous Weather

Welcome Annie's Granny, and thanks again for following my blog!

It has been absolutely fabulous outside, and which has made me not want to be inside to do much on the computer, though I have had time to check on other blogs. We've done plenty to the garden.

A lot has changed in this view in just a month! You can see the two bags of used coffee grounds waiting to be added to the compost pile in this picture. The nineteen-year old who lives with us works at the Starbucks across the street. This is just one of the perks. :)

I've sown another crop of radishes as well as another crop of lettuce.

First sowing of radish seedlings

Current spinach seedlings

My strawberry plants are putting off green growth like crazy!

We've turned the compost, and tried to combine the two piles, while we were hanging out with turtles, and searching for the one *for sure* male that we've got. Did not find him, though we have learned that the shy Bernice I showed the picture of on a previous post is actually Bernie or Bernard, whatever name fits... Our neighbor ladies told us they saw some mating action, and pointed out the "standing" culprit. Definitely not who we expected. Sure enough, I came home from my long night at the hospital and there she/he is, doing his business with our biggest female, Margaret. I'll spare you the picture I took. I saw my fifth and sixth delivery last night, so I've certainly gotten my dose of mother nature in the past few days! It's horrible to have to sleep so much DURING this weather. It has been 86 and 87 the past two days, and will be slightly "cooler" at 78 today. Couldn't ask for better weather. I better head to bed, so that I can enjoy some of it this afternoon! Both compost piles are hot, I've got the windows open. Gardening/weather is good :)

Dwarf Gray Sugar Peas