I really have no words for this post other than 'sublime.'

After my huge planting spree on Sunday, both of my trays are now filled.  Which is another reason I moved flats out to the greenhouse.

It should be noted that six of the new flats will be moved out to the greenhouse as soon a I have two true leaves on most of the seedlings, which should happen within in the next week.  That will free up space for the next huge batch that will be started in 1.5 weeks.

A tomato plant with "enhanced color editing." :-)  I LOVE this photo!  The water droplets were from the morning dew.

The kids are really getting excited about the broccoli.

More baby broccoli.

Have I mentioned my tomato plants are extraordinarily happy?

Dancing in the morning sun.

To answer the question about fertilizer, I suppose the easier question to answer is what soil do I use?  This is a mildly eye-rolling situation.  We went to a mega-garden store back in March, and I looked over the various bags of seed starting medium, and told one of the workers that I needed 5 bags of "that" and pointed to one of the bags.  Now in my mild defense, I had two children who were getting antsy, and a husband who was getting mildly antsy.  I just picked.  It wasn't until I had already checked out that I REALLY looked at what I had chosen.

Yep, potting soil.  Just plan jane potting soil.  The description:  "Enriched with Osmocote Smart Release plant food. Feeds up to 6 full months. Indoor and outdoor use. Contains rich organic material. The sphagnum peat moss boasts water retention and perlite improves drainage." 

When I realized my error, I had no desire to take it all back.  I do have MANY outdoor planters that will need to be filled in May, so I figured I'd just save it for them and go back (by myself) for true seed starting medium.  But then I was lazy.  I never went.  The seeds needed to be planted.  I rolled with it.  And voilà!

All that to say I haven't been fertilizing deliberately yet, but I'm not using a true seed starting medium either.  As soon as the plants start getting bigger, I'll probably start a bloom booster.

Garden plan coming soon!



Happiness

What a weekend!  I moved a few flats of seedlings out to the greenhouse, and then I proceeded to plant another 600 seeds.  By hand.  One by one.  Let me just state for the record that I'm grateful for my yoga training.  Repeated spinal waves were the only thing that kept my back from figuratively breaking.  It sure felt literal though.

My little plants in the green house are so happy!

I'm not thrilled about the bright orange tie-down, but the winds we've had recently have been CRAZY!  I'd rather have the bright orange tie-downs than have my greenhouse go visit Dorothy and the Wizard.

My Coleus are REAL happy.

So happy it's like a whole party in a leaf.

The chives and thyme are happy too.

And look how tall and happy the Marjoram is!

My tomatoes will be happy soon.  They're still wishing for the 80 degree heat.  But when the sun shines on them- real sun, not fake grow lights, they too will be real happy.  Just like the parsley.

I expect my Violas to bloom any day since they are so happy.  Ok, not really, but they are very happy and perky now.

And look at the bee balm.  Not quite sure what to make of all this happiness, but determined to make a good effort.



Bare roots arrived!

I received my two different varieties of strawberries and asparagus yesterday- 20 asparagus plants and 50 strawberry plants.  Yum!

Unfortunately I won't be able to plant them any time soon.  The past week and the upcoming week look like this.

Which makes my garden look like this. 

(Though I'm not quite so manly looking.  And I do shave my legs.)

I could brave the rain though.  And the mud.  But at this very moment, this is what it's doing outside.

I refuse to plant anything in THAT, rain and mud bedarned!

I guess I can suck it up for now because I'm also waiting for a load of this.

4 weeks out

Supposedly we're now 4 weeks out from our frost free date.  At the rate spring has been arriving (or not arriving) I think the +15 days are going to have to be applied.

Nothing was planted in that beautiful garden area in the last post.  We had snow this past weekend.  SNOW!  And this week isn't supposed to be much better.  If the 10 day weather forecast can be relied on, the early part of next week isn't looking any better.  Yes, I'm whining.  Even my daughter cried this morning because she had to wear her winter jacket instead of her spring jacket.  Normally I don't have much patience for overdone emotion, but I wanted to cry this morning with her!  I'll just keep repeating what I told her:  "Spring and summer WILL arrive.  They will."

Salvia

Tomato plant getting nice and shapely

My rosemary is slow growing, but it actually is starting to look like rosemary, isn't it?

Tall Hibiscus

What else?  A petunia.

Snapdragon.  Remember those tiny, itty bitty seedling starts?  These are getting big!

Broccoli! It's starting to look like the real thing.

Verbascum

A broccoli leaf

Another snapdragon



Super Excited!

The garden area is complete!  Many, many thanks to my father who spent a lot of hours on his tractor and excavator clearing out the land.

The area used to look like this:

After much cutting, sawing, pulling, digging, chopping, raking, and burning brush, it now looks like THIS!!

Does Dad ROCK or what?!?!

The whole picture- it's a pretty big garden:

It's time to start planting!  Ok, maybe not the warm stuff yet, but I think I might put out some peas and carrots and maybe even some lettuce this weekend.  I've certainly got plenty of space now!

Pretty colors today.

Gorgeous weekend!

We spent every moment we could outside this weekend!

Got the greenhouse up, and did a lot of work on clearing a spot for a garden. (Check the new menu tab, Clearing the Land.)

Working outside on the garden!  Pictures and description to come.  Here is what is happening on the inside.

Can anyone tell what this is?  It's easy!  (Answer at the bottom)  And yes, I purposefully enlarged the picture to go off the screen to help you with the guess.  I'm too lazy to go back and crop!

My first tomato seedling poking through.

Broccoli

Snapdragon in green slime.  Kinda pretty even if I would prefer not to have the slime.

A whole tray of Asters making their way through.

Next two are all the things under the bubble.

Answer: Parsley!  Of course!