I was so excited to be greeted by these blooming tulips, which opened for my day off yesterday. The day started off with a 7 am snow that made the world white again, but only for a very short time until the morning sun melted it away.

hyacinth?


irises

Mike loves these mini irises, and I love how early they bloom. Wouldn't they look magnificent in a big multi-purpled drift at the front of a bed?

ornamental perennial that looks like a beet

I was looking through the April issue of Southern Living last night and gleaning some gardening ideas. One of my favorites so far is using foliage to color the garden. I've tried using different kinds of foliage in the past, but I've been limited by my knowledge of the different plants' sizes, light preferences, etc. I'll be looking to learn more about these this year.

micro-Tom tomato
about to bloom!

lettuce

greenhouse
(aka, guest room)

This is where we're sleeping right now while we work on our bedroom, and it smells warm and soil-filled, just like any real greenhouse. Now let's just hope Mike gets that extra rental garden this summer, or else we're going to have a lot of little vegetables with nowhere to plant them!

Yay!

Happy Spring, everyone! It's finally official. Check out what's growing outside now:

tulips

tiny irises

crocuses

And also check out what's going on under the grow light...

lettuce


radishes, I think

beets

micro-tom tomato, already has buds!

The rest of the tomatoes and peppers have been planted and are currently under an incandescent lamp 24/7 to keep them warm. Many of them have now germinated. The peas are in the ground outside and are just starting to come up, and I'm going to start some flower seeds inside today. If you're thinking about starting some things inside, now would probably be a good time!

garlic (planted late last Fall)

I watched a robin hunting for worms in the garden this morning. It's refreshing to see nature come alive again, and my faith that summer exists is being restored.

The sap seems to have stopped flowing now, but check out the yield we had in the maple sap tally on the right! Mike doesn't really like the syrup, but I think it's good except for maybe a bit of an aftertaste. I actually just had some on my waffles this morning! I can't really remember what real maple syrup is supposed to taste like, so I'll have to get some to compare. All in all, I'd say it was a very successful maple syrup year!

I hope you can enjoy the warm days that are scattered among the colder ones. And don't get too discouraged by the cold, wet weather we have-- after all, March showers bring April flowers!!

It bloomed in time for my birthday :)

the season's first crocus

Mike got me really beautiful flowers, too, but I couldn't capture their beauty with my camera. Maybe I'll try again in the daylight.


It was soooo warm today, and I got a bunch more leaf clearing done. We moved the outdoor furniture back outdoors, and yesterday I washed all my gardening gloves. Can't wait to clean out the garage and make a dedicated gardening area! I also gathered some containers, cleaned out dead stuff and planted one pot with the tulips and hyacinths that never made it into the ground last Fall. We'll see how they do.

In all my excitement, I decided I should get to planning the container plantings. I opened my bday presents on birthday eve so I could play with them on my birthday, since I have the day off. Now I have a real reason to plan my container gardens!


Mike bought me two really nice big planters that I can use for flowers. I mean, these are seriously big planters that need more than just a few leftover flowers tossed into them! I'm really looking forward to this! I also got a great garden-themed gift from Mike's mom, which included some sweet gardening tools and gardening stamps. I'm set!

Bring on the grow lights!

-----Update-----

The chipmunk got the yellow crocus! So now we're using Liquid Fence (contains smelly eggs and garlic) and blood meal sprinkled around the flowers. Hope it works! Thankfully it left this new crocus for me :)


I also started looking for some flowers to fill my new big pots. I read that you're supposed to use a thriller, fillers, and spillers to make a good container. The thriller is the tall interesting plant in the middle, the fillers are the flowers and foliage in the middle, and the spillers tumble down the sides. The one I'm having the hardest time with is the "thriller." Most interesting tall plants only seem to bloom for a short time; cannas, delphiniums, tulips or irises, are all ideas I've had, but they only last so long. Another good idea I got today was replacing plants in your containers through the season. I mean, why not? There's not reason it has to be one container that stays there all season. But we'll see!

If you have a favorite container plant, note it in the comments to share your experience and ideas!

First Work Day, First Flower, and First Fruit!

Yesterday was my first outdoor work day of the season. Yes, it was cold (maybe a high around the 40s?), but it was warm enough to spend 15-20 mins cleaning up some leaves. And guess what I found under them!


Lots of green stuff! Including some bulbs that were looking a little pale from hiding muffled under the pile. And you may not have believed the title of this post, but it's true. One little crocus bloom has appeared (which may or may not be devoured by lagomorphs before it blooms):


as well as one, little green strawberry! (which will probably be chewed on by the chipimunk that lives under the house once the berry turns pink, but that's how it goes):


Don't let the abundance of dark brown ground get you down... Spring is under all those matted oak leaves, and according to Mike, those leaves keep the ground cool, so I'm all about cleaning them up and letting the green show through! And beside one little lady bug and some earthworms, I haven't seen any bugs out, so it's an especially great time to garden!

If you're trying to figure out when is a good time to start seeds indoors, we're guessing that it's safe to plant all those super-frost-phobic plants (tomatoes, zinnias, peppers, squash, anything that says to be planted after all danger of frost has passed) around May 1-15 in our area. So that's 6-8 weeks away. For now, we're keeping to a few early folks that can be put in the garden when it's still cold, like

beets (gold on the left, red on the right)

radishes

lettuce

and spinach, peas, broccoli, cabbage, kale, etc. These can all be sown directly in the ground a little later, but Mike just wanted to get a head start and do a little experimental farming now! Here's our pot collection, lest you were afraid we'd run out of containers to transplant all our little friends into:


And I also documented a little evidence of why we need all this vegetation... to support Mike's cooking habit! The little spice jars won't fill themselves, and the super-veggie-pizza is even more affordable when it is topped from the garden!

the spice drawer
note that this is all extra stuff that is not in our spice rack :)


Mike making more Italian seasoning
after we used it all up at last house church

our pepper, spinach, artichoke, mushroom, onion, olive, and chicken pizza
I checked this one off as a serving of veggies for the day!

I guess I'd better go figure out just what I'm going to plant in containers this year. Anything I can start from seed now is at least $5 saved at the gardening store a couple months from now. I'm such a flower-gardening-aholic! I'm just trying to remember that any failed planting schemes just go into the category of what will make me an experienced gardener someday. You've got to kill a lot of green stuff before you can really know what you're doing!

Happy Spring Planning!

The seed starting begins

Four big blooms on my amaryllis:



bulbs declaring that winter is over:



hot pepper sprouted and an already thriving micro tom tomato:


and one last pile of snow in the yard:



And even as fat, wet snowflakes are falling, I'm dreaming of Springtime, with lots of beautiful flowers and nests full of bright robins' eggs, and those first lime green leaves contrasting against a blue sky. It's getting closer every day!