No seedlings... just SEEDS!

The rest of the garden is finally going in - it's a total mess, I guess I'm going to have that "cottage garden" after all, take a look at my "plans".... I use that term very loosely!  It's nothing but scribbles and names of seeds with no specific place to put them.

I ripped out the broccoli, after only just a few spears, it was showing signs that it was getting ready to bolt in the heat already, so it came out to make room for bush beans.  So the bed below now contains bush beans, peppers, and peas.  A second planting of bush beans will go in after the peas come out.  It looks like I may be harvesting peas in a couple of weeks.

I did another sowing of lettuces, I hope they germinate quickly since all the current ones are mature.  I really need to work on my successive sowing, I tend to plant a whole bed and then am left saying "duh" a few weeks later!

I don't know what the below lettuce is, but I only have one of them.  It must have been in one of the "mixes".  It's so beautiful I hate to pick it, but I will this week.

I sowed a lot more of the below, "Bronze Mignonette" Lettuce, not only is it beautiful and delicious, it is doing really well in the heat!  I'll try and remember to keep you updated on how heat tolerant it becomes as the summer continues to heat up.

I'm harvesting this much lettuce every evening now... sure would like to see some red in these harvests - it's always a battle in our heat to get lettuce to keep producing once the tomatoes start coming in.  For now, we get lettuces, scallions, and basil on a regular basis.

Below is a detailed list of what went down out there today, the idea is to keep a record so I can see if any of these made a noticeable difference good or bad, at the end of the season.

Today's plantings:

• Chinese Red Noodle Bean - (on arch spanning beds with existing peas, greens, peppers, carrots, scallions, dill, zinnias & pansies)
• Contender Bush Bean - (bed with existing peas & peppers)
• Golden Wax Bean -  (bed with existing peas & peppers)
• Dragon Beans - (bed with existing peas & peppers)
• Spicy Mix Mesclun - (greens bed)
• Mizuna Greens - (greens bed)
• Bronze Mignonette Lettuce - (greens bed)
• Tango Lettuce - (greens bed)
• Green Salad Bowl Lettuce - (greens bed)
• Bunching Onions (Scallions) - (greens bed)
• Chives - (in tomato bed)
• Bouquet Dill - (greens bed)
• Mammoth Dill - (container with cucumbers)
• Cilantro - (greens bed)
• Japanese Climbing Cucumber - (in container with dill)
• Parisian Pickling Cucumber - (in ground on trellis)
• Solly Beiler Cucumber - (in ground on trellis)
• Sugar Baby Bush Watermelon - (in containers next to hops)

Still left to plant:

• Danvers Carrots
• Perfecto Radish
• Nasturtium
• Edamame
• Gourmet Pie Mix Pumpkin
• Hokkaido Squash
• Waltham Butternut Squash
• Ornamental Gourds
• Sunflowers
• Peanuts

A few things I am going to try this year as recommended in the book "Carrots Love Tomatoes"...

• Sow radishes but do not pull - with cucumbers, squash & melons to repel striped cucumber beetle, let the radishes grow as long as they will, even letting them go to seed, for squash - sow a few radish in each hill and let grow and go to seed
• Plant nasturtium with squash to repel squash bugs
• Place basil leaves over tomatoes in a bowl in the kitchen to repel fruit flies
• Keep growing more lemon balm - there is an old belief that bees will not leave the hive area if Lemon Balm is grown near it
• There is tons more info in the book, but these are the ones that jumped out at me as immediately useful or pertained to things I had already planned on planting!

All kinds of random...

I didn't get much of anything done yesterday, the weather has me down and I should have been working on the quilt, but instead spent the morning at my favorite locale for work avoidance...

When I got home I made some bran muffins with apple chunks in them and told the kids they were cupcakes... it worked!

Then, trying to get inspired to get back to quilting, I flipped on the tv to see if I could find a sewing or crafting show on one of the PBS channels...

What in the world????

this is what I found, apparently I'm supposed to cook dressed in a strapless gown with a rhinestone belt... maybe this is why my bread sucks?!  I obviously don't watch enough daytime television - basic cooking 101 has changed tremendously LOL...anyone know who this chick is?  I turned it off before I found out, it was depressing me :)

Hubby actually had a few free minutes before heading off to work so I put him to work in the garden - he's planting my potatoes!  This is huge because he really doesn't plant anything - don't get me wrong, he's the go-to guy for building my raised beds, fences, trellises, etc but planting and harvesting?  Nope, just the eating part of the deal.  Seeing as how I was so busy (in shock) watching the gown girl cook, when he asked me how to do it I told him "just go fork all that straw and stuff out of the bin, loosen up the bottom, throw them in cut sides down, dig some compost out of the bottom of that bin and throw a few inches on top".  I would normally watch this operation like a hawk but I left him to his own devices, when I went out to check later in the afternoon, he had left my dinner plate out there, but it looked fantastic!

See him?

This is normally all I see of him... he's always heading off to work!  This is his preferred mode of transportation, but I admit with him coming home in the middle of the night lately it has me worried, especially when he's riding home at 3 am on Friday and Saturday nights with all the bar hoppers on the road, but he insists.

We had the sun peek through for a couple of hours, so I "walked the estate" to see what was going on out there:

My creeping plants are creeping all over the place

the trays left outside for Mother Nature to sprout aren't doing anything yet

Mizuna

direct seeded spinach is up and growing finally

Peas are going strong finally

I was so worried about my 8 artichoke plants outside in these 20-30º nighttime temps, but they are fine.  They like to be transplanted early when it's still cool, but I had been very afraid for them the past few nights.  Last year I waited until mid-late April to plant them out and they all died.

Candytuft (snowdrift), named for it's early blooms

 Below, darn raspberries popping up into my raised beds!  Time to get out the flame thrower.

more lettuces...

Below, this one is for my mom... this is a "walking foot" (she reads the blog but not so good about checking her email!)

Again... can you believe it? This one just south of us, that's twice in 3 days...

You can read the full story about the whale here.

No more randomness today, cold and rainy again and I'm going to go quilt right..... now!  Well, maybe after I catch up on blogs, figure out what's for dinner, do some laundry, but then for sure LOL!

Flying solo again!

 Hubby left this afternoon... I had him doing all sorts of chores and even had him get a load of mulch in the trailer and park it next to the garden - and then I realized that he was leaving on a hiking trip, not deployment - so I basically had him do a months worth of chores to prepare me for 4 days of him being gone!  LOL, I don't know any other way...

The computer issue turned out to be an easy fix (macs rule!) I did myself, but it did finally light a fire under me to get my computer backed up.  I've finally purchased backup and have been running it for the past 2 days, should be another 2 days or so and the entire hard drive will be backed up.

 LOTS of stuff getting done the past couple of days.   Temps of 65º yesterday and 76º today has had me outside nonstop, and loving it, I couldn't tear myself away until now!  I did a good job of reminding myself it's only February and not sowing any flower seeds or anything, but I did get lots of planting done!  I checked my calendar, and I sowed peas last year on Feb 10th, it was much colder outside and we had a fantastic crop, so in they went.

Cleaned up all the beds in the small fenced in garden.  The only plants to survive the winter (other than leeks, scallions & garlic) were half of the spinach and the below:

Brussels Sprouts?  LOL, figures they would live through the whole winter... yuck!

Below, felt good to have my caddy along today armed with markers, shims for plant tags and SEEDS!

Below:  back right bed has Oregon Sugar Pod II snap peas, broccoli will go in the front of them when it's time, the back left bed only has brussels sprouts right now, front left bed has another trellis with Cascadia snap peas and carrot seeds, and front right bed contains parsley, scallions, Olympia spinach, Mizuna greens, Mignonette Bronze lettuce, Tango lettuce and mache'.

Signs of spring: pansies planted last fall are coming back to life in some of the beds - I usually plant rows of them between the varieties of onions and garlic.

I was worried that I planted my garlic too late (I did) and that the bulbs would rot before they had time to grow since they are usually about a foot tall going into winter, but here they come, behind the red and yellow pansies.  

Below, all of my artichoke seeds sprouted or are just peeking up, and only took a couple of days - much bettter luck than last year!

Below is hubby's light setup - I laughed when he brought it in and asked him if he thought I was growing  "another kind of plant" since he made the frame so TALL, LOL... good thing I had enough chain to lower the lights and a booster seat for the trays hahaha!  There's only one flat in there now but it will fit 4 flats in it - it's parked in the kids' room, there was nowhere else for it to go!

Here's hubby taking off this afternoon for the annual "Guys Only Winter Hike" on the Appalachian Trail.  The guys come from a 75 mile radius or so, they will all meet after work in Williamsburg and then head out the Blue Ridge Parkway until they get to the trail head and leave the car there and hike in at night tonight.  Although I love hiking, I'm not jealous - I want no part of this nonsense:  you should see what gets packed for the guys only trip!  Survivalist homemade pop can camp stoves, 10 different ways to "make fire", flasks of scotch, cigars, they are probably going to shoot and eat squirrels LOL... whatever... he even used my sewing machine to make himself an ultralight hammock to sleep in.  One of the last things he said was how this nice weather was going to put a damper on the fun hiking in the cold, wet, snowy trail - yes, he's happiest in "survival mode"!  I sent him with my camera so I expect some good photos when he gets back, that is if he doesn't turn it into some kind of snare trap or firestarter.  

Me?  I'm going to light a few candles on the back deck and enjoy a glass or two of wine and the lovely 60º evening we are in for!  I'm hoping for the energy to work on the quilt after the kids go to bed, but after the full work day I've had outside I'm not sure that will pan out!  I'm hoping to get some sweet pea seeds into the ground tomorrow...

Got Pollen?

We do! And we are starting to think about wearing masks out in the garden, it's miserable out there! When the wind blows it looks like a yellow dust storm. My husband's allergies are terrible and our neurotic dog wants to jump the fence every time he sneezes! Luckily, mine aren't as bad, just itchy eyes and a general tired feeling in the afternoon. The car today is actually worse than this picture - solid yellow!

Despite the pollen, we were outside all day yesterday and today working in the garden. I bit the bullet and planted my Edamame, Bush and Pole Beans, Baby Sugar Bush Watermelon seeds, Dill and Cilanatro seeds. My peas haven't even grabbed onto their trellises yet and were screaming "what happened to Spring?" the whole time I was out there - it was 91 degrees yesterday and looks to be the same today. The carrots are peeking up finally from their kleenex seedmats. Today I transplanted the Jalapeno, Bell, and Stuffing Peppers, and transplanted most of my tomato seedlings into containers. I am doing all of my tomatoes in containers this year, so now we have "Tomato Alley" along the fenceline. There is simply no more room in my raised beds for tomatoes. I still have a few but I will have to wait until we modify some more buckets and I can get some more soil mix made for them. Pictures of the garden to come soon!

Thomas, I see your cute Jonathan and raise you one Finnegan, LOL... someday our little guys are going to be very talented gardeners!:

Finn holding his Foodie Bouquet of Leeks (the last of the leeks!)

The blogosphere is quiet today, you all must be outside gardening... here's hoping you are finding all the room you need to put plants, LOL! I think we are going to quit early today and take the kids for ice cream and buy a gallon of eyewash and a pallet of Benadryl...