Under the Wire

Wednesday I had sick and cranky kids.

You wouldn't think that would NOT facilitate a finished gardening project, but while 4 year old L. slept I decided I'd had enough of responsible behavior and disappeared into the basement.

While I was there I filled the jugs with leftover soil from last year, planted seeds, labeled them, taped them up, and dragged them to the backyard.

Before Dean came home I managed to plant:
*a lettuce mix
*a basil mix
*spinach
*random flower seeds we picked up on walks last year (2 milk jugs)
*evening primrose
*sunflowers (autumn, jade, ice, basic)
*mustard
*cilantro (2)
*thyme
*parsley
*and some other herb I'm sure I'm forgetting right now

The herbs went into the second group of smaller bottles which I set out on one of the raised garden beds. Lesson learned last year: the small bottles don't need much wind to fall off the railing and burst behind the bachelor buttons.

L. slept the whole time and I felt strangely proud of myself. Mission accomplished.

On to setting up the seed starting station. Happy Spring, everyone, and Happy Birthday Grandma. Spring always makes me think of you.

Catching Winter by the Tail

I spoke last time of my list of things to do before ordering new seeds. One of the most work intensive was playing around with winter sowing again. I had a large box of recycled clear(ish) containers in the kitchen and I've been meaning to clean them out and cut them up before the snow melts.

Some of them are harder plastic than the others. These cranberry juice containers are very thick. Dean was nice enough to join me in this project on a Friday night. He manned the hack saw and tossed containers without lids to the dog.

Here I cut a swath around the top, leaving it connected on one side. I want to be able to tape it up once I have the dirt and seeds inside.

Then I took an awl and made a few holes in the top (for oxygen/rain) and several on the bottom (drainage).

Here they are ready to go. I just need to put in dirt, plant seeds, water, tape up, and set outside. I just hope it isn't too late.

By Post

Shortly after Kathi from Welcome to My Garden posted that she had finally ordered her garden seeds, I did. I'd been putting it off for awhile, immersing myself in cataloging my seed collection, baking bread, and generally resting before the Spring birthday run begins.

It came yesterday.

One of the reasons I've been so slow on this, is that I'd made a list of things I had to do before I could order seeds. I was using the seed order as a carrot to motivate me to draw up a garden plan, make a list of seeds I've bought and gathered, and begin winter sowing. Obviously I'm no rabbit because the list is not finished; the carrot did not work. Maybe it will get done. Maybe it won't. Sometimes you need a little push, like Kathi gave me, to get past your preconceived ideas of how something is going to be.

Yesterday I got another little jump start.

One thing I did get done was a listing of seed packets I've carried over from the last 2 years, and another list of the seeds I gathered from my garden last year. I enjoyed making the list. It's part a part of my goofy organizing and reorganizing nature.

Anyway, it was a good thing I did because the page-long list of seeds I absolutely could not live without turned into a list of 3-5 items. I have a lot of seeds. Much more then I thought I had since this is a fairly new hobby/way of life for us.

From that list we've decided to plant:
Decicco broccoli
Lemon cucumbers
Double yield cucumbers
Goldenrod bush beans
Kentucky blue pole beans
Bodacious sweet corn
Chantilly carrots
Space spinach
sugar snap pea
Envy soy beans (edamame)
Silverline melon
Power's yellow heirloom tomatoes (paste)
Opalka tomatoes (paste)--maybe
Aunt Ruby's German green tomatoes
Black cherry tomatoes
Aliana Kus tomatoes (I hear they're early so I may try one)
spaghetti squash
Delicata squash
Genovese basil
cilantro
dill
garlic

And I received from my order:
Cubanelle peppers
a Mesclan/lettuce mix
Vermont cranberry bean
Ambassador summer squash
Goldbar summer squash (backordered)

In my haste it seems I neglected to order blue potatoes. The boys will be disappointed. I've also cut out rosa bianca eggplant (we don't eat it enough), fingerling potatoes, Italian fennel, Black Krim tomatoes, and Calypso beans. Maybe another year.

In this order I also received 100 peat pots and a large row cover. They're cheaper at Pinetree then buying them at Walmart

That's my update. I'll try to get organized and have new pictures soon.