We didn't see this coming

It never ceases to surprise me or Pooka how Mother Nature doesn't give up. We went outside the other day to harvest and found that the confused blueberry had suddenly waited till the end of June to start getting leaves. Pooka just went "Mommy, it has leaves" And they are not small leaves, but you can tell its the first tenative leaves of spring.

Surprise leaves

It had a couple green tips begining to appear. Maybe this blueberry plant isn't dead yet. We are going to leave it alone and see if it can get itself strong enough to survive the summer and maybe even the winter. 

I am trying to be alive

Sadly, the probably dead blueberry is dead dead. It breaks instead of bends and has the look of a dead plant. So we pulled it and are saving the pot to replant something else into. At least we didn't lose them both to the polar vortex. 

It's dead Jim, take it's pot. 

Hedging bets may equal LOTS of tomatillos

This spring, I would of told you we were never going to see purple tomatillos. They didn't seem to grow well and they were rather sad looking. So I bought regular green tomatillo plants from our nursery to be sure we had something. Anything at that point would of been better then not having them at all. I had put the 3 most likely to die purple tomatillos in pots and told them to live or die but make up their minds. Pooka was rather saddened by the idea only getting verde (green, she speaks a bit of Spanish) tomatillos but when I told her I couldn't start more she accepted it.

Tomatillos decided to live

A couple of weeks ago, I went outside and realized that the tomatillo plants I had given up on had decided that they were happy as can be. They were big enough they needed to go into the ground. I had left just a small bit of space in that bed that I could put them in, so they were planted next to the green ones. Does this mean we may not get purple tomatillos? I have no idea. I am sure they will cross pollinate, but I don't know what that will mean. Until then, we are just going to wait and let them grow. Pooka was so excited to plant her purpura (purple in Spanish) tomatillos she is hoping to make one batch of purpura salsa this year. We will have to see what we get. I guess I shouldn't of given up. However, I will take this over not having any tomatillos anyday.

Surprise Pooka

Monday evening Pooka got a surprise. She was taking the recycling out, which is her big girl job, and hear a fluttering noise in the garage. Yes normally this would be a very bad thing.

However, this time she looked in the butterfly habitat. Turns out, we had a new friend and he hadn't figured out the lid was open. Pooka called Daddy and he closed it for her and promised to tell me about it when I got home from work.

Surprise

Tuesday Morning, sure enough "Lucky" as Pooka named him was still very happy in his home. We all thought everything in there was dead, but we had been lazy and hadn't cleaned out the habitat. Good thing I have been busy.

Lucky even got to go with Pooka to her school on Tuesday and hang out. Fortunatly her teacher is very understanding of Pooka's love of science and even let her do a little report on him. He spent the day next to the class Betta - Blueberry.

Lucky says Hi

Lucky and Pooka came home and even though we forgot him in the car, he is still doing great. We are planning to release him this evening after school. Pooka asked if her friend K could come over to help her release him into her garden. Hopefully before then I will get a better picture of him.

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.

 

5 minutes at a time.

Sometimes just working in 5 minutes bursts you can actually accomplish something.  In alot of cases, I can accomplish many things, if I just do the "random puttering" as Daddy calls it.

A few minutes meant getting tomatoes transplanted

In 5- 10 minutes I can: Transplant 4 tomatoes















 



Or tie up the falling over plants













Sprouting lettuce and spinach

Or go through and see what is sprouting.














Plant or replant seeds

Or maybe we can get some new seeds put in the dirt, or replant ones that died.





The new lavender in a bucket

Or transplant new plants

A quick harvest last year

Once things are in the ground, a 5-10 minute walk through the garden, I can grab a few weeds and harvest anything that is ready.







It is not a matter of having alot of time, just using the time you have. I can break it up or try to find one full day to do it all in. Now to remember this when we all feel overwhelmed. Plus, when you garden in short spurts with a Pooka, she doesn't wander off on you.

Color and Hope

Today is one of those cold, snowy nasty winter days. Not so nasty that you get the ever fun (and often dreamed about) Snow day but just those days that make you wish you could crawl back into bed with a couple of very warm children and go back to sleep till spring comes. These days are even worse when as a child, your parent seems to work more then they are home, and as a parent, you have to agree.

Today is one of those days. But, you're not here to read about my can't keep warm, that wind chills you in the house, grumpy mood. Nope you are here for the garden, and I thought I would show you how Pooka's holiday flowers are doing. They are doing quite better then I thought they would.

On Saturday Pooka woke up to this, the first bloom on her flower.


The first sign of color.
 

On Sunday, she awoke to twice as many blooms. That little girl was so excited to see something growing and changing. She decided that Green Thumb must be back from her vacation (or that maybe this was something Mommy couldn't kill)

Twice the color

Today Pooka woke up to a third bloom, and a kinda leaning plant. My sister who was in town over the weekend told me I might want to stake it up since apparently these things like to fall over. May I just say, she was right. You see, I went over to take the pictures for the blog, and well, it was leaning a bit. Okay alot.

 

So after a bit of thinking and braving the cold garage, I pulled out my trusty plant tape tying stuff and a bamboo stick I had planned to use with Pooka to make some art for the garden. 5 minutes later its looking alot better, if you ignore the brown rod and funny green tie on it. The stick should still work for crafting once the flowers are done.

No one said it had to look good.

While I was tying it up, I noticed something strange. Remember a bit ago when I said I thought my black thumb had returned and killed at least one of Pooka's flowers. Well, I may of been wrong since it seems to have rebounded slightly. It has no leaves, but maybe it will still bloom. It has grown quite a bit in the last few days. Maybe Pooka will still get some nice flowers from it. Maybe I just need to stop giving up on plants. I don't know. But in the end, she will be happy with whatever she gets, and I will maybe get a tad bit more hope that this cold NASTY weather will leave, soon and I can get some veggies in the ground since I am tired of buying them at the store.

 

I'm not dead yet.....

I hope you have some color around you and it reminds you that this weather will end eventually.

Another reason I should never give up on plants...

Today, I was surprised by 2 of the plants in Pooka's garden. One I was hoping I was wrong on, but the other I thought for sure was a waste of resources at this point.

I had long since given up on the broccoli. I thought for sure it had bolted and we would never get anything out of it. I was actually contemplating pulling it out soon so I could start figuring out where I wanted to plant some garlic for fall.  In fact, after planting it, I realized I had planted it too late, so that was a good chunk of the reasoning behind the fact I thought it wouldn't produce and I should pull it.  Pooka on the other hand kept telling me that she wanted broccoli off it. Especially since it had the butterflies on it that one day.

So imagine my surprise this morning when Pooka and I went outside to look at the plants and I glanced at the broccoli and actually saw a head starting to form. It is small and it may only be one bite, but I am going to leave the broccoli and see what happens. Who knows, maybe the plant that is almost as big as Pooka will sprout some next. Maybe we could have Garlicky broccoli for dinner yet using our own broccoli (Or at least partially made by home grown broccoli).

I see you....

We then walked over to the pepper plants. We are a huge pepper family. Pooka and brother love to sit down and eat one as a snack, with or without dip. At this point, we knew it was still a tad early, but I was really worried that they just weren't going to produce at all since they had been attacked by the bugs pretty early on. 

We finally found the beginnings of an actual pepper on one of the sweet pepper plants. Let's just say Pooka was rather excited. I have had to tell her a few times now she needs to wait till it gets bigger.  Now the question is what kind of pepper is it. We had planted a Sweet pepper mix, so did the green peppers and the sweet peppers cross pollinate with the pablano? So will we have a orange or red pepper that is spicy or will it be sweet? Only time and patience can tell.  

The new question will be what will this taste like. 

This is yet again another reminder that I need to let Mother Nature do her thing on her own time. She is a busy lady and I can't force it, but I really wish she would pay attention to what it says on the seed pouches. Or better yet, I could look at the "Days till harvest " information then worry. I guess this is another moment of "Gee, if you read the packet, you may not seem so silly."