Where did the weekend go?

Time sure flew by this weekend - I didn't get any of my seedlings planted yet! Last night I had a pretty good turnout for the Seed Swap Party, but instead of saying bon voyage to a bunch of seedlings, I ended up having more than before, lol! We all did swap and got some great stuff, but all of the extras were left here instead of going back home to their respective growers! It will work out great though, since I will be able to take them to the Master Gardener Plant Sale and thus their seedlings will go towards raising money for a valuable educational resource for local gardeners!

Of course, I completely forgot to take pictures of the event, but we ended up with 19 guests including all the children that came too! Below are photos of my seedlings before the event, now imagine that I still have that many flats only a couple more now, although the ones I set out have gone to new homes! Everyone did something different, which was nice. We had veggie and flower seeds, vegetable, herb, flower seedlings and some perennial cuttings from others' own yards.

A couple of highlights of the evening were provided by the children:

- Random children running around the yard in the dark planting unknown seeds they had squirreled away from the seed table into all my beds and who knows where else, that will be interesting!!

- At one point a few of us were inside talking when Loch quietly came inside the house, marshmallow on a stick in one hand, and pouring a draft beer out of the keg with the other hand... "It's for Daddy" he calmly announced and walked back out like it was the most normal thing a 7 year old could do!

- The drawing for a garden book & pair of gloves went like this: Me- "All the GROWNUPS have put their name in the drawing right? No kids, right?" ...to which everyone replies yes. I then proceed to pick the youngest child to do the drawing, who happened to be the Samster, he's almost 4. I say "okay Sam, pull out a piece of paper and give it to me"... he does and I unfold and read it and it says "SAM", LOL.... I think he rigged it! That was pretty cute.

As of now, the party aftermath is all picked up, dishes are done, and I just sent hubby out of the house with a 7 layer dip headed to watch "After Armageddon" in a garage... can you tell it's a guy's night out? They are probably in survivalist mode right now, talking of hunting and guns all while eating the food that the WOMAN made, hahahaha! Me? I'm putting the kids to bed early and going to veg out in front of the TV and knit - thank goodness we still have the regular networks! Hope you all had a productive weekend and for those of you in the south, I was thinking about you and hope your gardens and families are all ok after those storms...

Novelty Seeds to Share!

I don't have my entire seed order in yet, but I do have 2 varieties to share if anyone wants to give them a try! You will have to check your own growing area/requirements for these, and I have no advice since it's my first time for them, too!

Litchi Tomato (Baker Creek) - rare seed, heirloom edible plant but is more of an ornamental oddity, you can read about it here.

Purple Romagna Artichoke (Baker Creek) - not sure if this will produce for me this year, but it is a perennial that I have always wanted to try to grow because it is so huge and beautiful in the yard!

I have a few extras of each of these, and they need to be started indoors 8-12 weeks ahead, so for many of us, that is now! Drop me an email or leave yours in comments section with your address if you are interested in trying one or both of them, and I will get them out asap!

Seed Swapping Fun!

The past weekend was alot of fun in spite of the cold weather!  I hosted a Seed Swap & Cocktail Party on Saturday night for my gardening group "Grownups Playing in the Dirt".  It was an evening of meeting lots of new faces and getting a ton of new seeds to try.  I was impressed by the amount of guests I had (24!) and the amount of seeds and good food everyone brought.  I ended up with all flower seeds since growing flowers from seed is something new for me.  For others, veggies were the attraction.  It's a great way to meet people and try something new for free!  My home is tiny, but the husbands were able to start a campfire out back (with a propane weed torch, I might add, lol!) and we were able to spill outside around the fire for some extra room.  It was chilly, but no wind at least.  Soon enough we will be complaining about the heat and mosquitoes!  There were alot of kids so they kept busy running around the yard, as all kids should be doing...and I am sure they all went home exhausted!  Outdoors and tired...nature's ADHD remedy!  I intended to snap some photos of the event, but forgot all about it once the party started.  My seedlings under lights are still too immature to send out into the world, so now I have an excuse to have another party in May!  Speaking of the seedlings, here they are as of this morning:

The rest of the weekend was spent cross-legged on my graveled perennial beds with my kids and dogs weeding.  Not exactly exciting, but very relaxing nonetheless.  The kids were so helpful in fact, hauling my debris in their little red wagon to the compost pile, that I offered to take them out to dinner and let them pick.  They chose, of course, McDonald's...yuck, what is it about that place and kids?!!  Anyway, they got their wish and all I got was my body desperately wanting its gallbladder back!  I am noticing that my kids now know what is a weed and what is a plant, important since alot of my perennials are self-sowing babies all around them!  

Yesterday, my best friend calls and is thinking about apple trees for her yard instead of trees that "don't do anything" and it got me thinking!  She has room for some nice trees and for them to provide food is awesome, but I am afraid if I add any more trees to my backyard it will shade my veggies.  After some researching, I decided to order some Colonnade Apple Trees.  If you haven't seen them, they seem to be the perfect solution to add fruit for the family without shading the yard, or would be great for tiny gardens as you can even pot them on a deck.  I ordered 3 of different varieties, and will try and update on the status of them to see if they live up to expectations!  Click for a picture and article about Colonnade Apple Trees, and a video from P. Allen Smith.  Now I can't wait for them to get here...funny thing is, the day after I ordered mine, a post appeared about them on one of my favorite blogs "The Crunchy Chicken".  So at least I'm not alone in trying this strange variety!

I am hoping to get the rest of my garden weeded and start on our fence building this week, but it is still cold and supposed to rain tomorrow...ugh!