late start to the gardening season

Over 150 seeds are in--packed down in the warm soil, watered, and waiting to germinate!


Half the sunroom has been cleaned out! If you've been following me, you know that this is a major major accomplishment.

After the broken greenhouse fiasco, the company shipped me another one for free. So I got 2 4-shelf mini greenhouses for $30! Don't underestimate the power of ebay.

And I'm not done yet with the planting or the cleaning. I have plans for herbs and more flowers as well. Here's my list so far:

2/21

Mesclun lettuce (sprouted quick!--today, 2/25)
Roma tomato
cherry tomato
Tavera snap bush bean (green beans)
lemon balm
devir F1 cucumber
jalapeno
green onion (white lisbon bunching)
cantalope
sweet pepper (California wonder orange)
green pepper [Silly me. A couple days after planting, I realized that I essentially planted the same things. You see, if you let green peppers stay on until their ripe stage they will turn orange. A case of mistaken identity! This is most likely a very common gardening faux pas (I hope, for my sake!) Lots of peppers this year.] :-)

2/25

Roma tomato
crookneck squash
broccoli (di ciccio)--Spellcheck called it "Cicero broccoli." That's where Al Capone lived, but for some reason I can't visualize him monging on the raw green florets with ranch dressing like I do.
zucchini
optima lettuce (butterhead)--Spellcheck would like to rename this "letterhead lettuce," "butterball lettuce," and "butterfat lettuce." Might defeat the purpose of eating it, and if nothing else, give you an internal papercut.
sunflower (Aztec gold hybrid)
marigold (petite yellow--to brighten things up a bit)
northern sea oats
pampas grass
coneflower (echinacea)

Some of these are organic and some are not. While I'd love to be a purist, my bank account doesn't allow me to this year!

Now the trick will be to find creative places around the yard to put all these living things. I have two 14x5 foot raised beds but will definitely need several more. Last year we bought all the supplies at Lowe's. I'm going to try to get the wood for the boxes somewhere else this time--perhaps reclaimed wood--to cut the expense.

Here's my son doing a raindance last summer near the boxes. It worked too well.


The little one.

I would like to move toward growing all of our vegetables at home rather than buying them--a small step for food independence. For example, the lettuce will be kept in the sunroom as long as it will live, so it will stay bug-free and I can pick salads daily at my leisure.

Several tomatoes will go in pots at the end of the season to get us through the winter with fresh tomatoes.

The waterbath canner will be dusted off this fall, if anything grows.

The freezer in the garage will be fired up, if we can get to it.

I'm flirting with hydroponic gardening, but not quite serious enough yet. Let's see if I can get the outside garden worked out. But will I ever? That's the question of the year.

And the next, and the next, and the next.

I think I just found my answer.

My cats eagerly await spring so that they can watch more birds from the window and break down the screen to chase them when we're not looking.