So we had sleet last week. Ugh! And last night I forgot to pull in the pepper and egg plant starts and the egg plants look AWFUL this morning. Luckily they have perked up a little as the day has gone on, but I think I nearly lost them. Sheesh! It’s almost May. You’d think they could stay in the greenhouse overnight at this point. Thanks stupid weather!
So I took a few photos of the garden last week, then we had Easter and then I got Strep and I haven’t had a chance to post them before now. Here is the inside of my new greenhouse my super awesome husband made me for my birthday. The potting bench was my Christmas present. (See, told you he was super awesome)!! We still need to make shelves or a bench top type thingy for it and put in the gutters along the walls and finish adding gravel to the floor, but otherwise it’s finished. I love it so much!! 🙂
Tomato babies gettin’ bigger and bigger!
Trying out some Sweet Pea Currant tomatoes this year from Territorial Seeds. I saw some on Pinterest and went on a mission to find them. I have three plants, but with three kiddos who are known for cleaning the plants of any type of tiny cherry tomatoes, I don’t think we will have too many. I’m hoping that some might actually make it inside for my summer salads! 🙂
Herbs, onions and some extra brassicas.
Ahhhh! The Pink Senorita Zinnias. They were supremely gorgeous last year. I would like to know who was strong enough to resist buying seeds after seeing Baker Creek‘s seed catalog cover last year. Not this girl. That’s for sure!
And up on the deck (because I got tired of hauling them all up the stairs and into the house every night) more herbs. I’ve found Basil doesn’t like to be too chilly.
My first attempt at Egg Plant. Rosita is her name. 🙂
Tons of peppers. (I have 2 of these flats full. Hee Hee). It took me three tries to get pepper seeds going last year, so I may have overdone it a bit this year. We didn’t start getting peppers until really late and didn’t get anywhere near what we wanted. It would be way cool to be swimming in them this year. (FYI pepper seeds and seedlings like it really warm. My two fails last year were in my basement without any added heat. This year they got their own heater and were happy as could be).
Anyone watch Growing Your Greens on YouTube? I found a green and a purple tree collard start on Ebay and have those bad boys potted up. Mr Green is sprouting some branches or leaves now. I actually have more growth since I took this. Mr Purple hasn’t done much of anything. He’s a little slower, but I’m hoping he’ll kick into gear soon. I knocked his pot over a couple of weeks ago and I think he’s still pouting.
Strawberries in gutters in the backyard? Yes please! This fence divides our backyard to keep the diggidy dog out of the kids’ play area and garden when we let him out by himself. He had his full backyard privileges revoked due to some toy eating (as in see-saw. yup. seriously), digging and leaving, um, well, you know, everywhere and mama didn’t appreciate his attempts to fertilize the garden and area under the swings. 3 gutters. 30 strawberry plants. And boy are they happy now that I added woodchips. You can also see the backside of the greenhouse on the left, and all the way in the back I have 3 apple trees planted and 4 currant bushes.
They popped up so quickly. The potting soil has rock dust added to it and was covered with leaf mulch at this point. I’ve since added a layer of woodchips too.
The currants I JUST planted (and they were little dormant sticks a couple weeks ago) say “Wood chips? Heck yeah!!!!”
The main garden. Not much happening here yet. As soon as the weather settles, I will be so busy in here catching up.
This is for all of you Back to Eden newbies. This is 18 months in. This first load of chips was put on the garden in Fall of 2012. I just pulled back the top layer of the chips and this gorgeousness is what is underneath. The white is the fungi at work and all of the dark brown is the compost from the chips and leaves decomposing for the last year and a half. I didn’t plant in this spot last year, so it didn’t get any compost added by me like the areas I planted. I have nasty, hard clay too, so to see this is just plain amazing. Can’t wait to see what this growing season brings! 🙂
