SPRING BREAK!!

Spring break is in my house for the next week! I couldn't be more excited about it (other than the lack of a paycheck).  This means garden time for me, which has already begun.  Earlier this week, I was unable to get a sub job, and used it to my advantage.  I spent the morning rolling my newspaper pots for my tomatoes and peppers while watching Anne of Green Gables.  Make fun all you want, but it's one of my favorite movies from my childhood, and the three hour duration was perfect for making those 107 pots!

Newspaper sure makes your hands messy!

Heidi is such a funny dog!  This is her favorite place in the house.  This is where she spent her afternoon. She really has no idea she's a dog!

Yesterday I cleaned out the strawberry bed.  I pulled all of the straw off of the top, and cleaned up all of the dead foliage. I've since read that you can cut your strawberries down to two inches at the end of the season.  Anyone out there use that technique?  It's fun to see that my plants look like they did a month after transplanting last year, and they are a few weeks from when I planted them! I'm looking forward to seeing how that bed fills out this year, and I absolutely can't wait for those strawberries! I put a little bit of the straw back, that hopefully the plants will grow right through.  I want to keep the berries off of the dirt this year, and also wanted to protect them because the weather might still get a bit nasty before Spring is completely here.

I called it quits after that.  I wanted to clean out the rest of the leaves in the bed, but figured I'd better not do too much, because I'm notorious for starting projects that I don't finish.  So I quit while I was ahead.  That also left me with something to do today.  I finished cleaning out the main bed from the leaves that were sitting over it all winter.  I was pretty amazed by the number and size of worms in there!  Definitely not complaining! I got the bug after that, and ended up loosening some of the soil by the trellis, and planted my peas.  I was going to wait until later this week because we're getting 1.5 cy of compost to add to the bed, but I guess I just couldn't wait.

Seedling update: My first few tomato seeds sprouted today, and I have a nice little surprise from my saved Pineapple seeds.  I thought they had all germinated, but after they dried they looked okay, so I figured I'd try to sprout some of them, and so far 6 have germinated!  I won't be planting all of them, but I'm going to go ahead and let them go and see what kind of germination rate I've got.  Look closely! You can see the radicle protruding from the seed in the middle!

I'm contemplating cleaning out the Aerogarden and starting fresh. I know that means I'll be out my basil plant, but it grows WAY too quickly, and keeps burning on the lights... I can't move the lights any higher because the new lettuce that was planted got too leggy.  I'll probably be back to square one, but it's been a fun journey, and I've enjoyed some fresh basil, and LOTS of salads!  My husband requested ALL cells be used for lettuce this next time around. I hope I don't regret that when we've got LOADS of it growing outside shortly!


These are our Evergreen Bunching Onions (scallions). The only thing growing in the main bed right now... beautifully green though! Happy Spring Everyone!