Carrots and Lettuce

Turned over the front-most third of the front garden and started the carrots and lettuce today.  Carrots say 70 days till harvest, lettuce says 48.

Change of plans - lettuce into a trough, two rows of carrots up front.

Seeds into Soil

So the Better Boys and Straight 8 cukes are now in soil, in cups.  Put 11 Better Boys and 39 cucumbers!  If they all come up maybe I'll give some to Mimsy.

Bought Seedlings Yesterday

Bought seedlings yesterday.  Eight small Better Boy tomatoes, four pricey Yummy Bell sweet peppers, four jalapenos, and cilantro.  I have seedlings now!  That was unexpected somehow.

Two Days Ago: Snow Peas!

Put the Snow Peas right into the ground (don't usually do that).  I used last year's seed packet and planted a bit thick, just to make sure something comes up.  They went in on March 28th.

Cats dug around a lot recently (bad kitties!).  But they missed the seeds.

Rain Barrel 1 is Deployed!

And I bought seeds.  I got Better Boy tomatoes, Straight Eight cukes, Simpson Elite lettuce, Burpee Hybrid A#1 carrots, and Kentucky Wonder pole beans.  Ready to start them ASAP!

And here's barrel one:

Photo

Last year I took a picture every once in a while to track the growth of things.  Here's today's picture.

Moved 'em

Moved some of the white aslyssum but sowed many more seeds from last year's seed stock.  White alyssum everywhere!

Also violently murdered the holly bush.  It's a male, there are no females around for it to pollinate, and frankly it's in my way.  Buh-bye.

Baba Nadia

Today would have been my grandmother's 86th birthday.  She died this last summer, and now that a new, early, and very promising growing season is under way I can't help but think of her.  It is from her I learned to take care of growing things, not only how to do it but that I should do it.  I think of her daily but most especially today.  Happy Birthday, Baba.

First Crazy Idea Of The Year

On a thin strip of dirt, tiny baby white alyssum are coming up.  Perhaps if I carefully scrape it up, I can transplant it elsewhere...  I will try this!

Last Year's Rain Barrels Setup

From last year; late 2011.

These are here to guide me in putting them back together the same way.  They might inspire others to use cheap bits and pieces of PVC plumbing instead of expensive kits I've seen online.  Granted the kits look neater, but this being behind my house that's not an issue.

Phase 3 Begins (Garden for 2012)

Last night was unseasonably warm, and I got a nice start on cleaning up the garage (hereby referred to as the "Back Office").

This year's challenge is to get rid of these awful trees in my neighbor's back yard.  They are weeds; undesired trees that got big and are destroying my fence.  I'm confident that my neighbor will let me remove them.  Yeah I know he should do it but he's not in the best of health and if I want to garden in my back yard this year I need to do it myself.