It's time to plant! If you live in Virginia Beach anyways :)
My "oil pan carry-all" is ready for another season, it's my favorite thing for carrying planting gear as well as harvesting. I even had some leftover innoculant from my soybeans last year so the peas got the royal treatment :)
Uhhhh, yeah... this was definitely not in the budget, but how can I pass up a good deal? Paid 5 bucks for the whole lot of the pansies below. Every year I wait until the big box stores have flats that are droopy or need deadheading, they mark them way down since they won't do those things and they don't sell when they look that way. They were just getting too large for their cell packs and needed water but not too bad off, as they perked right up in the rain we had in the yard yesterday. Need to plant them asap, but what a deal!
This morning at 7:30 a.m. - look at that temp - the kids wore shorts to school!
Every year at pea planting time I get to use one of my favorite tools...why on earth did it take me so long to splurge on this thing? It saves way more than the $25 I spent on it in backache and ibuprofen costs. Now if only it had a reverse, right? This ADD gardener has to move posts often so I definitely need reverse.
I even organized all my stakes and random sharp objects that were strewn about still since last fall.
I also created a "special pile" of all my broken stakes and pole bits...
Do you do this too? I've got sections of poles that are only 8 inches long in there but I can bear to get rid of any stake-like object LOL! At least the small ones are separate now so I won't get so frustrated every time I try to dig a long stake out of the pile and "come up short"!
Check out the temp as I came back in the house at 12:30 pm... crazy stuff!
Now for the details on today's plantings -
(* new to the garden this year)
Sugar Snap Peas - old seed
Green Arrow Shelling Peas - Southern Exposure
White Onions - local feed store unknown variety
Evergreen Bunching Onions - FEDCO (old seed)
*Deep Purple Bunching Onions - Southern Exposure
*Tokyo Cross Turnips - 35 day variety
*Purple Top White Globe Turnips - Southern Exposure
Swiss Chard - old 2009 seed "just to see"
Olympia Spinach - FEDCO
Mesclun - old 2008 seed
Mizuna Greens - Baker Creek
Tango Lettuce - Sustainable Seed Co.
Bronze Mignonette Lettuce - Baker Creek
Red Salad Bowl Lettuce - Southern Exposure
Mache/Corn Salad - Sustainable Seed Co.
I had a lot of seed still from past years that I used, but most of my new seed for 2012 came from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange based right here in Virginia. Part of the reason is that my beloved Baker Creek Catalog appeared too late so they missed the boat with me this year. Yes, I know I could have looked at the online catalog but it's garden planning in winter - hey I'm loyal to whoever sends me the garden porn to look through on a bleak winter day! I'm funny like that - I've been ordering from them for years so I expect that my catalog will arrive in a timely manner so if it doesn't so sorry - better luck next year! Southern Exposure wasn't a hard decision for me though because they are our "local" seed company, organic, non-GMO, heirloom and all that stuff I want plus have varieties that have proven performance and historical significance right here in the Mid-Atlantic (remember how much older my state is than everyone else, that's neat stuff!), so it was a no-brainer. I still randomly get seed from a few other places of course, but they got the bulk of my order for 2012.
I love pansies! I even have some in my gardens that survive every winter. We buy more every year though. They are such happy hardly little happy flowers that who can resist them?
ReplyDeleteI'm still pondering what to plant this year. I think we may even put in a dwarf fruit tree, maybe peach or apple.
Your temps are amazing! I'm hoping we don't get that hot until July.
Sparkless, I never used to like them much but they have really grown on me the past couple of years, they are so hardy!
DeleteOoo.... dirty hands..... I'm so jealous!
ReplyDeleteI'm so lucky that Seed Savers Exchange is local to me. Our local grocery store always has a huge rack of their seeds so I hardly ever order anything. But I did order potatoes from them this year.
And those temps- crazy!
Judy
Judy, that's awesome! I've never seen an SSE or even a Southern Exposure rack around here just that darn Burpee :(
DeleteYour $5 flat of pansies made me salivate. (Our local greenhouse doesn't open until the week before Mother's Day.) Your temperatures are a little on the unbelievable side. What is your summer going to be like? Do you have tan lines yet?
ReplyDeleteAh yes, good old rebar for garden stakes. What would we do without them??
Had to laugh at you wishing for a reverse on your post hole pounder. I do know what you mean. I think I've suffered more injuries in the garden trying pull stakes OUT than by doing anything else. If we actually could invent one with a reverse, I think we'd be rich!
It's actually those green fence posts I'm always pounding, I love the little "catches" they have on the sides for my pea netting or doing my "Florida Weave" for the tomatoes, although I've found I don't like that tomato system as much as I had hoped, I tend to do other things now :)
DeleteWow, we were warm today too, but not that warm.
ReplyDeleteLove those dirty hands. I got some seeds started today,but I won't put things in the ground for another couple of weeks. I remember one Easter we had a snow fall. With this crazy weather, not going to risk it.
I want some of those pansies. :)
Lorie, I looked at my calendar and I'm actually late with my peas this year, usually they go in the last week of Feb, so 4 days late LOL! Even a bit of snow won't bother my peas or spinach and a few of the lettuce varieties. I won't put anything else out yet though except the turnips.
DeleteI want your pansies and your post pounder. Son-in-law is coming Saturday to extend the garden, so I need a reverse post pounder too...need to move every post over 14 feet!
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of work!
DeleteAnd the pansies are edible .... I don't need a post pounder with a reverse, I have a t-post puller, you can order one from Nothern Tool and Equipment. Since I use t-posts and cattle panels for a lot of fencing, having a puller makes it easy to move pens and re-arrange as needed.
ReplyDeleteTombstone Livestock, you are so right! Those pansies always look so pretty on our salads, I actually got one of the kids to try salad because it had pansies on it LOL! I will definitely need to put that post puller on my wish list when we move back to Minnesota.
DeleteI just love it when I get a good deal on plants. Nice score. What is that planting tool that you got there? Looks interesting!
ReplyDeletemeems, that's a "post pounder"... if there's a more technical name I've never heard it LOL always called them that on farms too! It's closed ended so you place it over your fence post and ram away to your heart's content with both arms and you never have to deal with stupid mallets and hammers again :) I finally bought it about 2 years ago and it was a great investment, especially because there's really nothing to break on them so we'll have it long after the pretty red paint is gone!
Deletegood,defianantly -no GMO,heck I wouldn't know if I bought it even? but all the lettuces ,my word,I have never tasted Swiss Chard,or most of the other ,I'm very narrow minded when it comes to salads bib and Romain ,maybe Italian version,ha.ha me thinks I'm out of touch with reality-ya and you guys knew that all a long lol
ReplyDeleteJudy, I love those regular heading lettuces too, but it's so hot and humid here we usually do better with the cut and come again leafing type varieties. They are all just mostly for color and texture variation, and those particular varieties do well here for as hot as it gets.
DeleteSeriously? I'm drooling over the fact you have dirt on your hands. We just shoveled out from a foot of snow yesterday. I love reading these posts where people are planting!!! Bring it on!!
ReplyDeleteWish you lived closer Mama Tea then I could shake your hand and make yours dirty too LOL, don't worry your spring will come!
DeleteI know what you mean about saving anything that looks like it could be a plant stake. I've got a pile that looks just like yours! The weather HAS been crazy hasn't it?
ReplyDeleteTami, LOL I'm thinking I'll have enough to make an actual scarecrow out of stake bits instead of straw soon!
DeleteThis year is already starting out really weird weather wise. We had temps in the mid to upper 70 these last few days and since we have a cold front coming in, it could get ugly today. We were already under a tornado watch on Wednesday and today we expect the same. It's going to be a scary spring here...
ReplyDeleteAnke, how did you fare during those big storms? We had constant rain this weekend and thunder but nothing severe or crazy here, this strange weather is going to bring us much heartache this year I'm afraid...
Deleteyea to bargain basement prices on your pansies!!
ReplyDelete