The Seedlings

Realized I haven't given an update on the seedlings. Been a bit of a roller coaster since I planted them...

Within 2 weeks they started sprouting!!

A few days later and MORE! I can grow things! Woo hoo! Go me!!

A week later and there are more than just the starter leaves! I'm the best! I'm not a failure! I'm not that accidental!

Three days later and the zucchini has exploded!

But too big for its starter pod, I'd say! 

 So I re-pot it!

I also notice other plants haven't gotten any bigger in, well...weeks.

 So I up-pot them too...

And it worked! Within days they had already burst with more leaves!

Just wish I'd done it sooner!

Now it's time to plant and yet they're still rather weak; feel like I wasted weeks. How did I miss that yes, plants started as seedlings DO get up-potted!

Oh well.

That and the fact that probably about a third or more of what I planted never came up.

Remind me again why I was chosen to start the plants when I can't grow anything?!!


So I decided to start putting them outdoors a bit, which I've read is needed for a few weeks - just a few hours in the sun and wind to help strengthen them and acclimate them, etc.
So I put them out in the sun for a few hours before moving them into the shade. It was pretty breezy on Saturday so I watched their frail little leaves blowing in a frightening way. Yikes! But, hey, need to step back and let them test out their wings; every little fledgling needs to learn how to fly - it's hard to watch, but it's for their good - mommies have to let go.

However, there are those mommies who forget about them until laying in bed and in the middle of the night are awakened to thunderous downpouring that they didn't know was forecasted.
{Oh no! I forgot to bring the seedlings in!! Do I get them? No, that takes WAY too much work and listen to the rain! The tray will be soaked and then where do put them down in the house? Welp there goes my entire crop that actually grew! Weeks down the drain and I suck and weh, weh, weh... [etc. ... head grumbling and ... fuzziness and .... zzzzzzzzzzz....]}

They looked quite beaten down, but seemed to have survived, so we shall see how they fare!
 Setting up for real great successes here, my friends.

Garden Plot Update

Progress continues here at ole yonder garden plot...

In what was a beautiful joining of inspiration and "yeaaah, everything else is way too expensive", my gardening partner came up with this idea to spiff up the strawberry bed with little raised beds in the middle and how cute is this?!
We shared WAY too many WAY too girly moments admiring just how "cute" our progress was.

Down the middle will be a path of creeping thyme which takes light footfall. Again...how cute is that?!


Lettuce, peas and pac choi are planted and the pea trellising is up...climb, babies, climb!

Beautiful dirt with peanuts buried and waiting to emerge (and the pac choi leaves are about the size of a sunflower seed and just adorable in their perfect little row!)

Of course, they haven't turned the water on yet, so thank the gardening fairies that our plot is about as close to the wooded stream as possible!
I grab the bucket and watering can and head off to feel oh-so-pioneer-ish.
It only took two trips, thankfully, but that was my workout! (Suddenly it started making sense why we seem to be some of the earliest ones out there and already have early crops planted ... ooohhhh .... riiiight. They need water when it doesn't rain. Huh.)


And then there are the zombie raspberries. On our first visit they were horrible, sickly looking sticks that were starting to mold. Ewww! Figured they would be getting yanked out.

And then this latest visit, I hear partner exclaim, "Are those RASPBERRY leaves?!!!"
Why yes. Yes they are.

Haha! we can't win!
So while we did make incredible progress on the disaster of weeds, this was not an area we finished yet. Figure it'll be next before we suffocate our crazy, molding and growing (?!) raspberries! We'll see if they produce.

Oh well, it's coming. Little by little, it's coming!

An-ne-me-ne-mo-nee

Three years ago, husband and I raided the bulb section at the local Lowe's.
Along with the gladiolas and calle lilies (still going strong and producing more offspring every year), and the accidentally monster cannas, we bought some anemones.

No, not that kind.

Unfortunately they were a spring bloomer (so why they were for sale in the spring with the summer bloomers, I have no clue!)

Oh well, we figured they'd come up next year.

Mmmmhm.
You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?

So every year since then we've gotten some little greens that get buried further and further under the bushes up front and no flowers. None.

I'll find the bulbs while digging and extending and relocating, etc., etc....and, having no clue what they are, will pull them farther out from underneath the bush and wonder what they could be.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear this year?!!!

Anemone flowers!!!

They are so completely beautiful and I'm so excited!!
Totally worth the wait (especially when you'd forgotten about them, given up on them and had no thought that they'd appear).

The Spring Border

Sad news on the tulip (and other spring flowers) border front...

I mean, what is there is pretty, but they're just not wowing.

And it begs the question...is it me?

Because there is a chance that it was the psycho cold, hot, freezing, 80 degrees, repeat winter to spring transition we had this year. A chance.

I mean, they started in early February and then got slammed in early March...

If not that, then it was me messing around with the bulbs when I expanded the bed and tried to re-arrange the bulbs while not disturbing the perennials (and perennials I thought were annuals).
Soooo...I may play again this fall and try to more thoroughly dig bulbs out, move some of the perennials (now that I know some stay green!) and make sure no bulbs are planted too deep.

I'm sorely disappointed at the poor showing this year. Last year was spectacular! This year, less than half came back up and some types not at all.
[cue slow, sad violin concerto]

Time will tell, time will tell.

For now, I will enjoy the beautiful things that are coming...

I see you little hardy geranium getting ready!

And oh the craziness of the tulips coming up through the perennials; what a mess! But they sure are beautiful!

The Garden is Now Open

Ladies and Gentlemen, for the first time in 2017, I am please to welcome you to the tornado path...um...I mean, our garden plot...


Yeaaaaah, so all those lovely, record-breaking warm days in February and what did we do?! Get sick, work in our home gardens, travel, do a whole bunch of other stuff that kept us from getting to the garden plot for clean-up...

But this week we made it.

And it was an ever-lovin' mess!!!


We walked up and are both like, "whoa."

"Okaaaaay, then. This is ... special!"

The tall bamboo poles with string around them to keep the deer out are completely fallen down, there are weeds growing out of every (I mean every) crack and hole in the weed barrier, trellises and poles and such all strewn around.

Pretty sure we were vandalized...


...by wind, rain and deer.

Last fall we very thoroughly removed all of the compost, dug down, re-sized, and placed large paving stones (recycled from my yard at home, thank you very much) before piling the compost back on. All in the efforts to minimize weed growth.
Weeeeell, here's how it looks...

 Weeds were growing out of the bottom just like in previous years. Alas. We tried.

(Typically at home I lay the weeds out to dry out in the sun before putting them in my compost; I've also read that weeds, especially those that have gone to seed, should be put in a plastic bag and left out in the sun to bake for a month or so to make sure all seeding has died. Well, here at the garden plot, we're far too lazy for that!)

All in all, just so much craziness going on!

So we spent a whole 45 minutes or so doing some of the minimal clean-up we had time for to get it a little less like a bomb site.
Our highest priority, though, was to get seeds in the ground!

Hey remember that post-it on which you wrote "SEEDS" and stuck to your cell phone knowing you'd see it and remember to bring the seeds with you on the day we were going out to the garden? Yeaaaah, not so much. Grrrr.

Thankfully partner had a few new seed packets (and hence we discovered that we will have 5 varieties of lettuce...ok, more, actually, because 1 of them is its own variety pack!) and so we cleaned out the disastrous little bed and got in a few rows of lettuce.
Yay! Progress!
We strung bamboo back up and cleaned out the smallest possible bed!


Yeah, so our work's cut out for us, that's for sure.

Well, at least a little does go a long way when it started as THAT much of a disaster!

And with that, the garden is open once again!! So excited for another year!
(And this year we will definitely know what we're doing and have it down! ;-D)

Happy Wednesday...

I'm choosing to ignore that it's like 23 degrees outside and there is a few inches of snow on the ground and will instead just say...

My beautiful first daffodils before they were pummeled. 

Spring. Not Spring.

You lie. You tease! I'm coming for you!!!

Yeees, after my exuberant "It's SPRIIIIIIING!!!!" ...well it got down to the teens over the weekend!

Then it got warm; today it's 65 and sunny.
Tomorrow it will get down to 17 again.

Well that's just depressing.

I was going out of town and so before I left, I figured my spring bulbs are used to coming up with potentially snow, so they'll be fine; the knock-out roses that had started putting out leaves bloom multiple times throughout the spring and summer, so even if this first one kills them off, hopefully they'll come back; so all that I was strongly worried about my hydrangea's poor little bitty leaves.

My coworker suggested piling it with leaves as insulation. Welp, worth a try.
So I did.

And I'm certain that my neighbors think I'm insane ("Honeeeeeey? Remember all the leaves she raked and then dragged to the corner on a giant piece of cardboard instead of a tarp because her husband stole the tarp for another project and then she left them there instead of bagging them up like a normal person? Yeah, well now she's dragging them back up to the flower bed where she got them.    How should I know?!   Shoot, duck, I think she saw us!")

However, upon returning home, I was pleased to see that nothing really had a problem. The rose leaves still look fine (my coworker's theory is that they're too small and didn't catch as much wind...?), the hydrangea leaves appear to have survived with minimal "burn" (we'll say it's because of my incredible foresight and expert gardening care), and not only are the crocuses back bobbing their happy little heads in the sun, but the tulips were exploding out of the ground! (I always have that "Oh yeah, I planted them there too!" moment when these bulbs come up!)

"We survived!! Go us!"

So, we shall see what this longer streak of cold temps this weekend and next week does. :-/   Come on, little guys, make it past this and we can really have a party!


In other news...


THE SEEDS ARE PLANTED!!!!!

Yeah, I'm sorry, but how cute are those?!
Puttin' the good ol' only-way-to-garden-in-a-1-bedroom-apartment Aerogarden to use!

With room for more in a few weeks!

So excited!!! 

(Put them out last night and husband already reminded me that I must be a very diligent little watering elf. I know, I know! I try...I really do!!)