After the crazy snow in February I was beginning to have my doubts about whether or not I'd ever be able to get thing out into the garden... Seems that 2010 is shaping up to by a very climatologically unpredictable year as just as sudden as the snow fall was an early (and extreme) spring warm up that shot temperatures up into the 70s and 80s in late March and early April! Insane!
The sunny days have not gone to waste, and I've been out prepping the garden for the year ahead as well as planting out the season's first crop of cool-season veggies! Things are up and growing with lettuce, peas, spinach, turnips, beets, and radishes already popping up! Meanwhile the basement is crammed full of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and herbs just waiting to go out once the danger of frost has passed!
One of the new things I'm trying out this year is growing some potatoes. I ordered up some gourmet organic potatoes and they arrived just in time to plant last weekend! I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this:
They arrived in a cute little box looking for all the world like specially packed Easter eggs complete with colored shredded "grass" or a box of gourmet chocolates. They even have the little card that tells what each type of potato is much like a box of assorted chocolates! Too cute!
I don't exactly have a ton of space for growing potatoes, so I'm trying out a new product... potato bags. This allows you to grow potatoes above ground and almost anywhere. I have them lined up along the corner of the yard where the bird bath sits, so we'll see how they do.
Next week I'll post a few snapshots of the spring veggies. by that time they'll be big enough that you can really tell what they are. Right now everything just looks kind of like mini green sprouts! In the meantime, here are a few of the sights of spring from around the yard:
(L: Hellebore in bloom. This has been an awesome year for them. Every other spring we've had a late freeze that has pretty much knocked down the blooming. R: The perennial bed heading back to the garage. Everything is so small right now it's hard to imagine that in just a few weeks many of these plants will have shot up waist high or higher!)
(T: The front porch complete with new "window" boxes on the front railing and new porch furniture. The branch jutting in is the beautiful flowering tree in the front bed. R: The hedges along Herr Street. Some day they'll be nice and full and tall enough to block the snow in winter. (Theoretically!) Despite the rough snow right at the end of winter they still put on quite a show of yellow blooms this spring. We only lost a few branches even though they spent weeks under a snow drift 6' tall!
The sunny days have not gone to waste, and I've been out prepping the garden for the year ahead as well as planting out the season's first crop of cool-season veggies! Things are up and growing with lettuce, peas, spinach, turnips, beets, and radishes already popping up! Meanwhile the basement is crammed full of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and herbs just waiting to go out once the danger of frost has passed!
One of the new things I'm trying out this year is growing some potatoes. I ordered up some gourmet organic potatoes and they arrived just in time to plant last weekend! I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this:
They arrived in a cute little box looking for all the world like specially packed Easter eggs complete with colored shredded "grass" or a box of gourmet chocolates. They even have the little card that tells what each type of potato is much like a box of assorted chocolates! Too cute!
I don't exactly have a ton of space for growing potatoes, so I'm trying out a new product... potato bags. This allows you to grow potatoes above ground and almost anywhere. I have them lined up along the corner of the yard where the bird bath sits, so we'll see how they do.
Next week I'll post a few snapshots of the spring veggies. by that time they'll be big enough that you can really tell what they are. Right now everything just looks kind of like mini green sprouts! In the meantime, here are a few of the sights of spring from around the yard:(L: Hellebore in bloom. This has been an awesome year for them. Every other spring we've had a late freeze that has pretty much knocked down the blooming. R: The perennial bed heading back to the garage. Everything is so small right now it's hard to imagine that in just a few weeks many of these plants will have shot up waist high or higher!)
(T: The front porch complete with new "window" boxes on the front railing and new porch furniture. The branch jutting in is the beautiful flowering tree in the front bed. R: The hedges along Herr Street. Some day they'll be nice and full and tall enough to block the snow in winter. (Theoretically!) Despite the rough snow right at the end of winter they still put on quite a show of yellow blooms this spring. We only lost a few branches even though they spent weeks under a snow drift 6' tall!
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