A good days work

A week ago Friday, Pooka and Brother had the day off school. I was feeling a bit behind with the garden, so we put ourselves to work outside. Well, Pooka and I did, I do believe Brother spent most of the day playing. Pooka helped me transplant most of the tomatoes. 

Transplants getting bigger

We also took care of this poor guy. He didn't make it through this hard hard winter. I had hope he may come back, but I am getting to a point where I am tired of waiting. I am tired of looking at sad plants and ready for new ones to take their places. I want to start harvesting already.

A victim of winter

Instead this new little guy got planted in his place. Hopefully we will have plenty of lavender to use this year.  All this was done in the same day. Now if I can only have a few more days like this and we may finally get caught up. 

New life. 

Filling in

Since we harvested the garlic in the front bed, it was looking a bit barren. This would not normally bother me, but since it is in the front of the house, it looked very sad when I would pull in. Not to mention to come to our front door, you had to walk past a completely empty bed. Add to that, I got an email from our local nursery that all the veggies and herbs were 50% off. Off to the nursery we went.

So empty looking.

After some looking and thinking, Pooka and I decided on some nice plants. I will admit they were a bit thin on plants, but that is what you get waiting on clearance. We decided to plant the dill that was in the red pots on the front porch, as well as the oregano that was potted on the back deck. From the nursery we brought home a French and a Spanish lavender, an oregano, a 4 pack of celery and some milkweed. Yes, Pooka and I decided on a flower when they are $0.80 and they will attract butterflies for Pooka. She wants to see how many butterflies she can get to visit.

Laying the plants out

 I laid everything out to see how we liked it. Most of these are annuals, so I won't feel bad in a few months ripping them out and putting in more garlic or anything else. I made a point to put the lavender on the edge so I can plant around it if needed.  Another issue we have had with waiting this long, is some of the plants were fairly root bound. We are keeping them well watered in hopes it helps them get established.

In the ground

However, upon further thinking, we decided to stick the Spanish lavender between the bolting cilantro and the sad chive plant. It seems to really like this location and now I won't need to move it later this fall.

Lavender

Going to the nursery, Pooka's going to get plants...

If you remember, Last Thursday Pooka and I went to the nursery to "plan out what she wanted to buy."

Well, if you remember, they didn't have tomatillos that Pooka has been asking me for since January, but said to call on Friday to see if they got them in. We called Friday, and nope, they weren't in yet. We called on Saturday morning and someone said they had come in. So Pooka and I talked Daddy and Brother into coming because I wanted to know what I had to save space for in the garden and Pooka wanted her tomatillos.

We got to the farther away nursery and couldn't find them. We asked and apparently there was a miscommunication because they had not arrived and were probably not going to. Sigh...

Yes, this meant a very very upset Pooka. I jumped in and made a deal with her. If she gave me $10 of her birthday money to buy herbs for the front bed, I would take her to the nursery we usually go to and I would buy her tomatillos with the $10.

This meant she would get to go to 2 nurseries and get her tomatillos. So she wandered around the Far Away nursery and found a few things she liked. Another strawberry plant, a lavender plant, a chocolate mint plant, a venus fly trap (Wait, how does this make food for me?) and I got us an aloe 

plant (since I had a feeling we may need it with all the outside time coming up), some more thyme.

Haul from store A

The venus fly trap has become a favorite with Pooka. She has also asked for a drosera plant, but she didn't have enough money. I told her one carnivorous plant at a time please.

 

Flies anyone?

But now the search was on for tomatillos. I called our favorite nursery just blocks from our house and they said "We should still have some." Luckily it was on our way home so we stopped by. Daddy and Brother waited in the car since as Brother put it, "It is just another nursery." True, but this one had what Pooka wanted.  

 

We went back to the greenhouse with the vegetables and they had 6 tomatillo plants left. Thank goodness. Pooka decided to get 3. Since she still had some money left over, we got some romaine lettuce seeds so that we can hopefully grow some lettuce everyone will like.Now to just get it all in the ground.

Tomatillos and lettuce seeds

It's not dead yet...

It has rained and rained and rained the last few days. I went out this morning and had to empty some pots that didn't drain as well as I would of hoped. Some had standing water in them and I was trying to drain off as much as I can to prevent the plants from being waterlogged.

I admit, the last few days, I have been in a bit of a funk. The world has been weighing on me since April thru May are some of our busiest times between school, work and kids. As a result, I am only hoping the garden doesn't kill itself while I let Mother Nature do her thing.

But today, I turned around and found a lovely surprise.

Peek a boo, I see you.

Aside from the weed in the pot (you would think I would remember to pull that before taking a picture), do you see anything? To me the plant looks fairly dead

Green, on a dead plant?

Is that a bit of green?

Not so dead after all

MY GOODNESS, IT'S ALIVE... Who knew. I swear I thought it had died over the winter, drown in frozen pots of water.

I really need to trust in Mother Nature more

But nope, here is more signs of life on the plant. Maybe it will live another year. I pulled it into a more sheltered spot on the deck awhile ago to try and dry the pot out some. It hasn't been rained on much, but being in this spot seems to be helping it. I guess I need to get out there and trim it back to figure out what will live off it. I guess spring is finally here.

 

Going to the Nursery

Monday Pooka and I went to the nursery. We were hoping to buy a bigger rosemary plant and some romaine lettuce for salads. However, it didn't go the way we hoped.

They didn't have any big rosemary plants. Instead, they had a little guy, and the romaine had been hit by a late frost.  Pooka and I use alot of rosemary in our Rosemary Garlic bug spray and Pooka's new Rosemary hair rinse. So hopefully this little guy likes his new pot and gets bigger fast. He got placed in the same pot that had some cumin seeds didn't survive in. At least it was already full of dirt.

New Rosemary going into a pot

Pooka and I also bought a new lavender plant. Our other ones didn't seem to handle the winter very well. I think they drowned.

Baby lavender

We got this since I found Pooka a Lavender Rosemary hair rinse she wants to try. Plus, lavender is very calming and I am hoping to remember to use the flowers this year. Although the tag did come with a nice little recipe for Lavender lemonade. Since Pooka loves lemonde, I am sure this will be tried at least once.

Lemonade anyone?

However, we have had an issue with having enough pots this year. Well I was out recently at Kmart and got this little guy for 75% off which is cheaper then a regular plastic pot. Pooka picked out the color.

Easter--No, its a pot now.

It did not have drainage holes, but that was easily fixed. I got lazy and didn't feel like finding Daddy's drill bits, but a screw worked quite well when Pooka and I went to add holes. There are a few that Pooka did "all by myself" while I just held the drill since it is kinda heavy.

Making holes

 Add a coffee filter and some dirt and the lavender looks quite happy now. I may have to repot it soon into a bigger pot, but right now, we are a bit cramped for space. Plus it makes a Pooka happy to see her "silly pot."

Happy little lavender