Starting another batch of herbs

Well, we are still running behind getting these posts done, but one thing we have done is start a few more seeds. I had these left over peat pots from a year ago. They take seed starter soil, but it was what I had and I was trying to not buy too much more. We pulled out the seed starter mix and got to work.

Well, we found pots

Once they were filled, we ended up putting chives (from the chive box), as well as dill, cilantro, and parsley in them.  This allowed us to finish off a few seed packets and again try to use what we have.

Seeds

I apparently forgot to take an after picture with all the popsicle sticks sticking out, but its the same as every other year. By the time we got these started, we had already started moving the tomatoes out of the seedling containers, so some of the cups got put in that tray to save space.  The rest got put in a  muffin tin at first. Once we finished potting up the tomatoes, the rest got moved into that container as well.

An almost done photo

Since I did this a while ago, I can say they all seemed to have sprouted quite nicely. They are still a bit small to go in the ground, but they are making up time quickly. The entire tray currently lives outside and is getting ready to harden off and be put into the front beds. Maybe I will remember first of the month pictures... Maybe.

Tomatoes learn personal space

Okay, I admit it. In all the end of semester, end of school (since the kids and I are in different schools), spring garden plus the return of garden club for Pooka, and spring birthday world, I have been less than on top of things here. I promise stuff is still getting done, but here is me starting to play catch up and hopefully getting caught up.

A few weeks ago now, Pooka and I went to do our morning check on the tomatoes and realized that well.. they may of gotten a bit big. As in, big enough to start touching the light bulb on the grow light. Somethign needed done.

I think the grow light is working

And while it was a bit cool still outside, Pooka and I took our tomato tray outside to try and deal with this mess. Yes it looked worse once it was out of the light.

Oh dear... its a forest

The tomato plants had gotten rather big, so we started trying to gently pull the plants apart from the mass of vegetation. I will admit I should of done something sooner, but oh well. This is just one of the average size tomato plants. Yes those are regular coffee filters for scale (okay, honestly, they were there, but it gives you a good sense of how big these things got).

Tomato plant

I will admit it took Pooka and I the better part of a day to just sit there and pot the tomatoes. While we were doing that, Daddy and Brother were working on the side bed pulling off rocks and pulling out the old brick. I am not sure if Daddy or I got the worse end of the bargin. However, at least from my work, we will have food one day. The tomatoes no longer look like this, and some may or may not (okay may) of been a bit frost burned in my attempts to harden them off when it was still a tad chilly outside. However, this is why we plant extras. If nothing else, just means less tomatoes I need to find a home for.

Tomato army

The rosemary that talked

The little rosemary that said... please take me home.. I need a good home. 

I need a good home

And while it was still a tad early to be bringing plants home from the store (and it wasn't even the nursery) rosemary is used for so many things in our home, we really needed to get one started so we will have enough rosemary for all the things we do.

And in the ground

Good thing I knew just where to put it. Right in the spot of an old rosemary that was pretty well dead. Now to get it established enough that we can start harvesting.

Signs of life in the garden

This time of year is a fun one for Pooka. Daily and some times multiple times a day, she walks through her gardens and just loves watching to see what is coming back. Its almost like a second Easter bunny that comes daily. She will walk through the garden always looking for that new sign of green, and with all the rain we have had lately, things are starting to wake up.

Blueberry is waking up

One of Brother's blueberry bushes is looking rather excited to see spring. It was the first to bud and may even leaf in the next few days. The other two are budding out, but no where near this close to showing signs of green.

Raspberry

Just like the blueberries are all starting at separate points so are the two raspberry bushes. This one is green everywhere and showing lots of life. The other one I am not entirely sure it isn't dead, so we are going to focus on the fact that one of the bushes lived. Seeing all that green gave Pooka and I a bit of hope maybe we weren't getting in too far over our heads, maybe.

Chives

The chives were one of the first things up. They don't look like this much longer, but rather Daddy has been joking he may need to mow them soon. My response was more along the lines of maybe we need to be making some bake potatoes and eggs to use them up. Well, that and I need to let Pooka and her friend K at them They won't last long after that. Pooka has already gone through the chives and gotten herself a few snacks saying "Oh, how I love the first chive of the season." Seriously, I can't make this stuff up, it is how she is.

Tarragon

In the old reliable department is the tarragon. The "lets' eat the sidewalk and everything on either side" tarragon. I am actually going to have to do something about this guy since this was taken on today, and spring isn't even all that sprung. Imagine how big it would be by the end of the summer. Stay tuned for my first attempt at dividing something.

Rose bush

Gremo's rosebush came back this year. Pooka asked if her letter underneath had been destroyed during the winter. Being a coward, I changed the topic. So far all the growth seems to be at the bottom of the plant, and I am hoping that is a good sign. Never having done much with roses, I am kinda flying blind. Although Daddy asked if we should do something about the big spear.. I mean stem growing up the middle. It has HUGE thorns and no signs of life yet. I told him we wait and if its still dead looking by mid may, I will remove it.

stars

Not all of our stars survived. In fact, this seems to be the only set that did, but they are happy as can be. I am hoping they will eventually take over this area, much like they did at my grandmothers. Right now, we are just waiting to see what it does, since my attempt to bring one inside died horribly.

SURPRISE

In the "Wait that's alive?" category is the chamomile. Yeah, I am not sure why it is alive either since again, I heard it was a very temperamental annual. It seems quite happy in its little spot and Pooka actually told Ms. A (The owner of our favorite nursery) that it came back and even she was shocked. Free tea supplies for mommy and Pooka gets to once again prove people wrong.

I just want to soak up the sun

It has been nice enough for the citrus trees to hang out outside. They are much happier this way.

Soaking up sun

Let us hope this a sign of spring really coming.

GARLIC.. I see garlic

The garlic is up. All those little bits of green are garlic plants. Pooka saw the plants and started singing "Yay, the garlic is up, I will not need to eat grocery store garlic." over and over until Daddy got annoyed.

Garlic appears

Now to hope for big bulbs of garlic.

New Growth

Some days, you have to look for the little signs of spring. Especially on a very cold night in the middle of winter. And sometimes, it just jumps at you.

Caroline and Cave

 On that cold night, I saw a little sign of spring. Caroline the lime tree had some new growth on a branch.

That looks like new leaves

 Further inspection showed some flower buds and more new growth to go with it.

That is new leaves and a flower

In another section of the tree, you could see the flower buds and new growth right next to the ripening limes. Caroline might as well been jumping up and down saying "Spring, spring, I want spring."

We have flowers, fruit and new growth

Pooka took this as proof that Caroline liked being on Brother's desk, even if Brother wasn't too fond of the idea. I wish our lemon tree, Cave, would show some spring like moments, but I think he is just not as happy with the lack of sun. Then again, we did get some fruit tree fertilizer (organic of course) to put on both of them, so hopefully that will help as well.

Spring is coming, according to Caroline.

All in all, I think this shows that spring is coming. I am with Caroline, I want spring too. 

Sign of spring

Back deck covered in pots. That is a sign of spring. Now to get it all in the ground.

The back deck hoping to get planted soon

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.

First Harvest

We have had our first harvest. It wasn't much, just a quarter oz of tarragon and an eighth of an oz of chives, but it means we are getting things back out of the garden. Both our tarragon and chives came back from last year, so in a way this harvest is all profit. A very tasty profit when we put it in our scrambled eggs.

Hello Harvest

Stupid cold snaps

I will be honest with you all, we have been transplanting and transplanting away here. All our little seedlings are going into pots to get big and strong and ready for the yard. However, I haven't had a chance to tell you all about it. Granted, showing plants going into pots is real exciting. 

Stupid cold

However, this is what happens when you get a cold snap. Everything ends up in your garage hiding from the cold. The table it is sitting on is just an old hollow core door we use as a workbench. The most annoying part is the 15 minutes it takes to move them all inside, then the 15 minutes it takes to move them all back outside daily and it only gets worse as we continue to put more plants into pots. Soon, maybe the weather will give in and things can live outdoors. 

Planning for spring

A couple of weeks ago, Daddy and I marked out the last of the new garden beds. This will probably be the last time the garden expands due to lack of space. However, it should give us enough room to rotate the tomatoes for 3 years. 

The last of the veggie beds.

First we marked out the new veggie bed in the back. This is on the far side of the deck and we will need to move the pots. No I don't know where they are going yet. However, it will be a nice new bed once its done. We also plan to clean out under the deck a bit, especially since we promised to rebuild the swing set that has parts under there. The old swing set was no longer safe.

Pooka's new bed

Then Pooka helped mark out the spot for her new pollinator bed. She is so excited and ready to get to work. We are using the fence from the neighbors with their permission since they have a flower bed on the other side. They really loved the idea of not having to weed this side. Before you know it, she will have plants in that bed and ready to roll. This is her little place where I will not make too many faces over the flowers. However, I will not be working on it too much either besides occasional weeding.

Now to get them all dug up and start planting.

This is not what April is suppose to look like

Winter AGAIN?

On Tuesday I woke up to find this on the back deck. While we had brought everything in the night before, I am more then a bit over this whole winter thing. Especially after seeing blooms on our magnolia tree less then 24 hours before. Poor Pooka was even fed up saying "Winter, leave us alone." Let my spring go.

More of this please

Getting anxious

2 weekends ago, Pooka and I were getting a bit anxious for spring to really hit. We have had spring like moments, but nothing that is here to stay. Pooka and I were ready however and decided to get a start on a few things.

Cilantro to be compared

First we started some cilantro. They are only in 2 little pots (which I somehow forgot to get pictures of) but we did one pot of each to see how they compare. These may live in the house for a bit before we take them outside. The upside is we will have cilantro sooner than if we waited for the front bed to be ready.

One of 2 raspberry bushes Pooka bought with her own money

Next we decided to do something with Pooka's raspberry bushes. I will be honest, Daddy and I had no idea where we wanted to put these, especially long term and we didn't have a bed for them to go in. We decided this year they will live in pots where we are figuring out where to put them.

No sign of the stargazer bulbs

We ended up grabbing the pots that held my stargazer bulbs last year. There was no real sign of them yet this year, and seeing at least 4 times over the winter they had water frozen to the top of them, I figured it may be a safe to call them done. So Pooka dug some holes, and I put in her bushes. 

Ready to rock and roll

I am hoping the pots will be big enough and that it allows us to get some bushes but maybe not go to full size this year. We will see. I know nothing about raspberries so I guess it is time for me to break out my gardening books again and see what I can learn. The good news is less then a week later and both have leaves either budding out, or they have started to peak out already. I am taking it as a good sign. 

Garlic everywhere

Spring is finally starting to really show its face. The garlic has just started appearing everywhere in the last few days. We have had wonderful rains that watered our pea seeds and have given the garlic a boost to come out and find the sun. I can finally begin to feel the truth of spring in the air.

Garlic anyone?

Pooka is excited to see real garlic coming up as well. Every day you can see her stopping to admire her herb and garlic areas as she comes home from school. She loves walking it to see what has started to look like it may come back, and what has grown. Daddy is excited since he finally used the last of our homemade garlic powder yesterday and misses it already. He asked if we could please please make more. I told him of course once the garlic is ready but soon we will have other things to get to work preserving and harvesting.

Life finds a way

Pooka and I found a surprise on Monday. We were walking through the garage and I looked over at the very poorly cleaned up garden supplies. Sadly, by the time we tried to put the garden to bed last year, our hearts weren't in it, and things got thrown in our yard waste/old recycle bin.

Anyway, Monday, I looked over at the recycle bin and on top was the big pot of chives from last year. The pot Daddy loved having full of chives for cooking with. It had chives in it and a price tag to something, (this is real life folks). Not just the dead chives from last year, but new chives as well, that were growing and somehow surviving since that pot had not really seen water and more then 20 minutes of sunlight since fall.

I moved the pot out into the front porch so it could get watered/rained on and sunlight. The seedlings look in decent shape for where they were. You can see they had reached for the sunlight outside the garage, and now they should start developing really well since they are outside. This is even better since I decided this year we are not growing our own herbs from seed. I will pay for those, but here is one I don't have to rebuy. Maybe next year I will overwinter it in the house so Daddy gets his fresh chives all year. We will have to wait and see.

Lemons and more lemons

On quick glance at the lemon tree shows some signs of life. Enough signs in fact that I am hoping soon I can take the lemon tree outside during the day. I do worry the tree itself is not doing its best in here, but if it can hold on a few more weeks, we may just get it to perk back up outside.

Cave the Lemon tree looking a bit beat up after winter

The other day I noticed some small lemons on the lemon tree, well those lemons have gotten bigger and bigger. They have grown quickly and seem to be doing quite well. Even if I feel as if I am deflowering that tree almost daily.

I see lemons

I am hoping with a bit of luck, these lemons will grow larger and turn yellow before it takes 6 months. If not, well, I will be happy with whatever we get and maybe I will finally get around to re potting the lime tree. Maybe. 

Pooka's lemon tree sits on her desk next to her art supplies.

Picking up the last of few seeds

A day running errands, means Pooka gets her snap dragon seeds and dill seeds. This means the last of the plans are in place for the garden this year. Now we just need to get everything growing and wait till there is more to do.

We have dill

We did decide to try a couple different varieties of dill seeds to see if there was a difference in them. Hopefully the seeds of change will work out and I can slowly start cutting back the number of seeds I have to buy. Hopefully.

Winter returns

Winter threw a what we hope is a last swing at us on Weds. The temps went from being almost 60 degrees to back in the 20s. It was rain that turned to ice that turned to snow, and while we only had 2-3 inches, it was enough that it closes schools. Apparently the snow cut power to a quite a bit of town. I only hope this is winters last hurrah. I am grateful for the nicer weather once more.

More winter yuck. 

Spring is here for the minute

We had a few nice days where it was warm and things began to come alive. The temperatures have reached the 50s and the kids and I can once more walk home from school in the afternoon. As soon as things dry out, they may even be able to play in the yard.

The blueberry tree is budding

The trees are starting to bud out and life seems to be returning out there. I know it won't last, but I know that these little glimpses of spring will tide us over just a bit longer.