Signs of life

Seedlings are sprouting in Pooka's fairy garden she got for christmas. They are still small in this picture, but considering they are not on a heat mat, that is a good thing they have started.

Fairy garden

The cauliflower and the broccoli we started just a few days ago is already sprouting as well. It is good to see signs of life when the weather outside is one of cold and snow. It brings hope that this too shall pass. Now to wait on the peppers.

Cauliflower and broccoli

Time to get into gear

That time of year has snuck up on us again. It is time to get seeds started. Pooka has been so excited to get the seeds going, so we started them on the last Monday of Feb. I lied to myself and said I am not that far behind since I still got them done in Feb. We decided to start our pepper plants first, since they do tend to take the longest. 

Seeds everywhere

In our first tray, known as tray A we had 9 varieties of peppers, as well as 2 types of broccoli and some new purple cauliflower. Pooka received the purple cauliflower in her stocking from Santa.  She also recieved these Violet sparkle sweet peppers for her birthday. They are purple, they sparkle (supposedly) and they are sweet peppers. It kinda had to happen. I don't know how many kids will get excited to open a present of seeds at her birthday party.  

Pooka's two favorite new additions

Now, there are times I hate being a mom, not many, mind you, but a few. Monday was one of those times. I started rehydrating the seed tray before I went to collect Pooka from school. I told her all evening "Get your chores and homework done and you can do seeds. I am doing them with or without you." The seed trays re-hydrated, and Pooka was being, well Pooka and not getting her chores done. 

Seed trays rehydrating

Now, I love Pooka, I do. With all my heart, but some days, she can be the most pokey, easily distracted, hey look a shiny person you will ever meet. This was sadly one of those days. That Monday, true to form, I had to start seeds without her. I kept telling her "I am doing seeds, hurry up." I finally got them all in the tray except for her sparkle pepper and her purple cauliflower. She got to come in and put those few in the tray. She was disappointed that I started without her, but even Daddy reminder her I had been telling her for awhile I was ready to do them. It is a hard lesson, one I hated having to teach her, but I saved her favorite two for her, and maybe, just maybe she will be a bit quicker to get moving. 

Work in progess

In the end, we got to finish the seeds together. Pooka got to put her favorite ones in, then she helped me lay out the seed mat and move the newly planted tray to the seed raising area by the front window.  She was so happy to see that this means spring is coming, even if it is still freezing  cold outside.  

Signs of spring

At war

We are at war. You see, I planted the broccoli and it started getting snipped off. I think Mr. Bunny has a taste for broccoli. Once I found one whole plant GONE, another looking rather sad and a 3rd and a 4th with teeth marks, I declared war on the rabbits.

Rabbit damage

I do go by the rule of thumb that 1/3 of what I start from seed will never germinate, 1/3 of what I plant will go to the critters, and 1/3 will be ours, but it is very frustrating to have your newly planted broccoli all disappear suddenly. Especially when it is the only thing in the ground.

Bunny had some Geometric broccoli

I shored up our defenses. I pulled out my trusty stakes, zip ties and some chicken wire we had bought a few years ago but never used and built myself a wall to prevent Mr. Rabbit. Now, I know it wouldn't slow him down if I hadn't staked the chicken wire into the ground. My hope was that this would make our broccoli look a ton less appealing than any of the neighbors yards and if it didn't I may have caught him and could re home him somewhere a bit farther away.

Cross your fingers this works. 

I can say since the wall has been up, the broccoli has been unharmed. My neighbor did say their lettuce is getting a bit of the bunny treatment, but I also know for a fact a set of rabbits live under their deck next to their garden. One plant did not come back but hopefully once the rest of the garden goes in, I can remove the wall and let nature do it's thing. I am so over buying produce at the store. 

First in the ground

First in the ground

Well, it took two days due to rain, but I finally have something in the ground. The broccoli is in and getting quite comfortable out there. I will say the picture is from day 1, but I managed to get them all in there and now we wait. I know Pooka is really hoping her geometric broccoli will do something this year. I can see her little face getting all excited over a new kind of broccoli that is different. Personally, I am just happy that we have a few less pots on the deck.

Broken Broccolli

During a morning walk down of the garden the other day, I saw this small broccoli plant laying on its side. Completely. Well, I grabbed it and it turns out something caused it to break off its roots. It had a small floret of broccoli. We decided to harvest it and it made a decent snack. 

Broccoli down

When I looked at the end of it, I think it just broke off. What would of caused it to break off, I have no idea. However, I don't plan to find out anytime soon. I sometimes think I need to put a video camera outside at night to show us what is going on, but then I realize I am probably better off not knowing. I will leave it a mystery. Pooka decided to blame Bugs (the bunny) and happy moved on to more important things, like if her carrots are ready to be pulled.

the broken end of the plant

Better late then never - August Overview

I promised these pictures are from the first, even if life has kept us busy of late. The temperatures have been milder this year then most. The garden is certainly loving it tho.

Garlic bed

The old garlic bed has been replanted twice with new annuals and Pooka's new plants. Those will be in a post later. Almost everything in this bed we will have no problem tearing up in the fall to replant garlic. Until then, we will see what we get.

Front yard beds

 The rest of the front bed is filling in nicely. We have been harvesting herbs not only for meals, but we have been drying plenty of herbs as well. It will be so nice come all winter to cook with.

sunflowers

 The Sunflowers are growing. Some of them have reached over 10 feet tall, and the Pooka a few of the Pooka sunflowers have multiple heads. Pooka loves to have Daddy go stand next to them so she can see how tall they are. We have yet to see the velvet sunflowers bloom, but they have started to form buds so their bloom is not too far off.

deck view one

The back deck is covered yet again in plants. The eggplants are getting ready to produce and we are getting some very nice strawberries. Our second set of green onions is growing and we plan are starting to get squash off the squash plants.

Pot stand

The lilac is doing well and the celery plants are doing much better in this slightly shadier spot. The snapdragons are even starting to bloom which gives this little spot some color as well as the lavender sitting on the table between the two chairs. I will say the zinnias died as well as the snapdragons in the easter baskets. At least we know now that easter basket don't work. Good to know.

Deck View 2

Around the table the lettuce and the strawberries are doing okay. The zucchini is going okay. We have yet to get much from it, but it is trying. The pots on the table have all sprouted but are not ready to transplant just yet.

Broccoli and nothing

The bed next to the house is still holding on. The broccoli is still fighting no matter how much the cabbage worms are trying to kill it. The bok choy seeds I planted do not seem to be doing much, but that is why we also started some in a pot. Hopefully in a few days we will be able to transplant the little bok choy

Sugar Snap Peas, Green beans, and Basil

 The peas are still producing no matter how sad they appear. They are holding on but the heat spell we had a week did put some stress on them. The green beans are doing well in their spot. We never seem to have enough for the meals, but the kids are enjoying having green beans as a snack occasionally. The basil is doing very well and is in need of being cut back again. More herbs to dry.

Sweet peppers, Tomatillos, Red onion and romaine

 The Peppers are doing okay. We are finally starting to see some real production out of these and it is making us all very happy. The tomatillos are loaded down with and should be ready soon. Pooka is so excited to have her green salsa. The sweet onions are doing well and some are even flowering. The reds have been pulled, but the lettuce seeds we planted there are sprouted. Maybe the romaine will do better in this setting then the hanging pots

corn squash and peas

The sisters for the corn didn't take. The corn is doing well, if suffering a bit from needing more nitrogen.  I am going to try putting more peas in the container and seeing if it helps. The squash has produced a few times, but it seems to be having its own issue. The dirt from the potatoes is in the black bucket in the back with pea sprouts starting.

Cucumbers and broccoli

The cucumbers are climbing and producing while the regular broccoli is doing well. The geometric broccoli is starting to take off. We have had a couple of broccoli harvests already, but as long as the plants don't bolt, we should be able to get many more.

Tomatoes

The tomatoes look smaller if anything. What happened was that the tomatoes actually fell over. We have already harvested over 180 oz or almost 11.5 lbs of tomatoes. Pooka has already asked to see if we can make homemade ketchup. Brother agreed, but has started to worry maybe he shouldn't have. The tomatoes have become a giant mess I will have to untangle soon.

Spicy peppers and cherry tomatoes

The hot peppers are taking off. We have harvested over 9 oz of jalapeno. The poblano peppers are finally flowering, but we haven't seen any yet. The cherry tomatoes are taking off although we have only seen yellow and orange tomatoes. Pooka is looking desperately for a purple tomato. Hopefully she finds one this year.


As you can see, the garden is doing very well. Pooka has harvested over 421 oz or 26+ lbs of food. Pooka says this total "is the best news ever." I am glad she is happy being her and happy with what she is growing. If we are growing plants that make food, that makes Daddy happy the grocery bill is lower.

Signs of progress

A walk into the garden shows the fact we are getting close to really producing food. We have tomatillos that are starting to look like tomatillos.

Tomatillos

 We have a second broccoli head appearing on the plants.

Brocolli

 And the blue corn looks to be starting to get there as well.

blue corn

Maybe soon I can stop going to the store. Maybe

Geometric broccoli going in the ground

As we all know, we have had some scope creeping (explosions) this year. The broccoli romanesco went into the ground on Friday. It seemed to have been doing great in the pots and well, I was trying to clear some room on the deck.

I knew going in not all the pots would fit in the bed with the rest of the broccoli. Since I had 4 pots, I decided to only put the contents of 2 pots in the bed with the rest of the broccoli. The rest was going to get moved over with the bok choy.


Geometric broccoli ready to go

First I got the first 2 in their homes. I know that supposedly broccoli and tomatoes do not get along very well, so I made a point to limit how many broccoli I put in the ground. Hopefully between the limit and the fact that I put cucumbers between them, they should all play nicely for a bit.

Pots one and two with the rest of the broccolli

The second two pots got placed in with the bok choy. I do worry since this so close to where we had broccoli last year, that we may run into a bit bigger pest issue. However, everything has been so wet that the pests are everywhere. I am hoping that as soon as it starts to dry out, things should do better.


Pots 3 and four in the ground as well.

Getting these in the ground officially finishes the back beds. Now to do my daily walks and just watch for pests and weeds and hopefully start harvesting soon.

Finally something in the ground

Even with all the insanity of late, we have finally started to get plants in the ground.

First was the tomatoes that were getting too big for their pots. Those went in last week before we even had the beds finished.


Tomatoes

On Monday before we had to leave to deal with family matters, a pot of broccoli fell and the terra cotta pot broke. I grabbed the plant up and got him into the ground.  Not the way you want to plant, but it worked well enough.

Broccoli

But Wednesday Pooka and I finally got a chance to get some real planting done. The weather was nice, the lows were going to be in the 50s, we decided to take a chance. First we started by gathering all the sunflowers in the front yard. It didn't seem like that many when I counted them

Sunflowers all gathered up

Then I had Pooka put the pots where the plants were going to go. There is no rhyme or reason, this was how Pooka wanted to plant them. I did go out and write down on a piece of paper which variety was which so we would know.

Ready for a new home

Next came lots and lots of planting. I don't have pictures since I was getting a tad dirty and moving the rocks to plant was a bit of pain. I will say the rocks have helped with the weeds in this bed. But I am going to be watching it to make sure they stay that way. Once they were all in the ground, this is what they looked like.

Welcome to your new homes Sunflowers

Sadly, the sunflowers due to rocks and weeds took a bit longer then I had expected and we had to leave to do some other things. However, after we were home with Kiddo and Daddy started to make dinner, Pooka and I got the Pak Choi in the ground. They were a tad wilted that day due to the heat, but their new home is in bit shader place which should help. They perked right up after we watered them.

Pak Choi (Bok Choy) that can grow 4 in a square foot

Hopefully this means over the next few days Pooka and I can really get to work getting things in the ground. I know Daddy would like to be able to walk on the deck again, let alone sit down in a chair. Lets all hope the rain holds off until its too late in the evening to do much for the next few days.

More seeds...

So I already admitted I had a problem. However, I will say that not all of this is my fault. Pooka and I just started 8 more pots of seedlings.

It started when Pooka brought home some seeds from Nainai's (did I mention Pooka is learning Chinese and Nani-Nani is chinese for grandmother). Turns out, one of Nainai's coworkers had some extra squash seeds and asked if Nainai wanted them. She said no, but Pooka would. We don't know what kind of squash they are exactly, just squash, so we figure once it produces we will figure the rest out.

Then Pooka asked if we could grow marigolds since her egg flowers didn't really survive. The last one was the fact that more then once Pooka and I have looked at this new type of broccolli called Brocolli Romanesco which has this really cool geometric pattern thing going. It just happened to jump in the cart one day.

More seeds

So Pooka and I planted the squash and the broccolli. Is it a tad late to be starting broccolli, sure, but if I can nurse it along through this weird spring and summer, I will have an early crop of broccolli come fall. 

Seeds hoping to start.

The marigolds have not yet been planted since their home is currently holding a tomato. I am hoping to get that in the ground after this cold snap. The same one that has a frost warning on for tonight. Welcome to oh who knows anymore.

OUTSIDE... Finally

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time taking most of the plants outside. It is finally warm enough that I plan to let them stay outside for a few days.  It was nice to know they finally had enough sun.

Amaryllis went out front.

I put the amaryllis Pooka got over the holiday on the front porch. They are looking rather sad after I think a cat started chewing on a few leaves. I am trying to figure out what to do with the darn things. Can I cut them off now and then have them rebloom later this summer? Any ideas from people who have done this before?

Picture one

Getting all the plants on the back deck in one picture was not going to happen if we still wanted access to the yard and the grill. Instead, I have 3 pictures. Here is the blueberries, strawberries, lilac, potatoes and veggies is all I am going with in the little pots.

Picture 2

Here you can see the last of the plants on the deck itself. The spinach and lettuce is in the back right corner. I finally moved them out of the garage yesterday and some have already taken root. Hopefully I will be cutting myself a salad in no time. The some of the tomatoes are on the strawberry tables. I forgot to bring these in last night, but they seemed okay at first glance.

Picture 3

Here is the plants on the table. I didn't have much rhyme or reason to where things went. I just kinda shoved things places, but I wanted to make sure the roasters of "seedlings" were up a bit higher to keep them safer from the dog. Now not everything looked very healthy and in some cases it was just pots of dirt, but I am hoping to pull out the seeds today and restart some of them. Fortunatly for me they are easy to restart plants like broccoli, pak choi, lettuce, beans and herbs.  Hopefully all of these being outside will help with the gnat issue that killed so many plants this year.

 

Tomates, egg flowers, scallions and mystery

I left some of the more tender plants inside. The egg flowers don't look like they are doing so well since I kinda forgot to water them for a bit. The scallions were growing great, and we actually trimmed them for dinner. We put the cut ends back into the water to see if they regrow. I forgot to get pictures since I was more then a tad melted when Daddy asked to cut them. The tomatoes I am hoping to transplant some of them this weekend. I know they were a bit dry yesterday and I was afraid to put them out when they do not have a whole lot of dirt to hold water.

Surprise peppers

These peppers are still in the front room. I know they are having an issue with mold. Something this kind of tray seems prone to, and no, I do not plan on reusing this kind next year. I am going to keep these guys and hopefully replant them as well soon so I can strengthen them to get them outside. Maybe spring will start staying. However, I haven't taken the tables down, I think that would be testing fate.

The groundhog was on the take.

I am really done with this whole winter thing. I woke up to ICE on my car yesterday. I swear it is as if Mother Nature said "Haha, you have every single one of your pots in use and more plants to put in them. I am going to mock you by being 18 degrees when you woke up this morning."

Now, I try not to get upset about things I cannot do anything about, but when you have a 2+ foot tall pea plant growing in the house, as well as 12" tall bean plants. I think I get the right to make one small grump.

26" tall pea plant.

Not to mention the bench that goes under our front room window is now accross the room and has broccoli sitting on it. It is keeping some random toys, Darth Vader and Pooka's magnifying glass company.

Newly transplanted Broccoli sitting on the bench.

I need the weather to warm up at least some. I am not ask for 70 degree days here, (although we did have them this time last year). Nope, I am just asking for 40 degree days where I can put the peas and the beans and the broccoli outside, since they all love those temps. I need my pots back for other plants. I really don't want to have to buy more pots, but I am starting to think I may need to.

I am all out of pots and tables.

I think the groundhog that said spring was coming was on the take. I bet he got paid a nice big salad for lying to us. The little liar.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go buy some pots and a couple more tables... 

Talk about confusing

Like many people, we have been hit with late winter storms. In fact, if you look out the back door right now, you will see well at least 4+ inches of snow. That doesn't count the ice that came before it.

Rosemary, Lavender, Audrey's empty pot

Basically, our dog loves it, Pooka went out and played in it this morning for a few minutes before deciding it was cold.  I am okay with it, (but I desperatly need a snow day), but it reminds us that winter is not yet over. Although one would think heading into March we would be past most of it. The rosemary in that small red pot is pretty much dead, the lavender in the green pot may come back and the stuff in the tan pot was the dirt from Audrey, so I have nothing to worry about in it.

On the flip side you walk into the house, and you see spring everywhere. Pooka's Grow um seeds are very busy sprouting left and right. Daily I go through and turn them 90 degrees since they are reaching for the sun outside.  Here you see the lettuce, bok choy, Peas, broccolli, cilantro all fairly well established. The basil is just starting to really grow.

Half the grow ums.

At the other end of the table you will see the rest of the Grow ums.  The oregano has tiny tiny sprouts. I didn't see them but Pooka did since she takes her magnifying glass to them daily to watch for changes. This is her favorite part, she loves planting the seeds on top so she can watch the roots come out and go into the dirt. I also placed the clearanced herbs here so they are all in the same spot.

Rest of the grow ums and clearanced herbs

We have been very busy around here. We also got most of our veggies seeds started. I was worrying that the peppers would take too long to germinate, so I wanted them done early. Pooka and I did it very rushed on a Saturday night in those 16 cell starters. Those are an interesting contraption and I will get a post up on them later.

Seeds seeds at least they are started.

Then I realized I was well into the window to start tomatoes. Except I didn't realize till after I started to hydrate the pellets, did I realized I grabbed the 72 cell starter instead of the tomato starter, so Pooka and I just went with it and spent an entire afternoon on Monday starting the tomatoes, sunflowers, and well everything else. Now we wait. I still need to start the snapdragons, and most of our herbs, but those will go into peat pots probably this weekend. Right now, Pooka is having plenty of fun watching her plants change and grow, and I am running out of places to put seeds. Plus, I think if I have to use a third card table, Daddy may have something to say about it.