more flowers

Planted Isaac's marigolds in the front of his playhouse, red sunflowers for a "fence" in the back of it, and then we planted the first row of giant sunflowers that will hopefully shade the tomatoes. Put eggplant out as well. Pulled the peas out. It is getting up into the 80's now. I'm not sure my broccoli or cabbage will make it.

more spring stuff

• Another delicious lettuce, arugula, and radish salad today.
• I planted zinnias around my vegetable garden. Tiny seedlings and seeds. In two months or so, should have beautiful flowers.
  
• A bird is making a nest in a tree in our backyard--with my shredded paper mulch! I am so pleased.
  
• I put bush bean and cilantro seeds in the ground today.
  
• I noticed the bush beans I planted before are sprouting. Borage has also sprouted.
  
• The tomatoes and tomatillo are growing fast.
  
• The coneflower looks so comfortable, all tucked into its mulchy bed. I am really looking forward to seeing what they look like in a few months.
  
• I have tons of flower seeds to plant, so that the backyard is ablaze with blooms from early summer to frost.
  

garden update

A brief update:

• Lettuce, arugula, & radishes harvested yesterday. Isaac had so much fun cutting the leaves of the letture and arugula. Very tasty.
• Coneflower white swan bed prepped and planted with my precious little seedlings started all the way back in February. I am hoping for a very low-maintenance, cheerful little bed there. Read the description from Park.
  
• The arugula is growing so fast that I anticipate another harvest tomorrow, along with the lettuce on the front porch that has VERY quickly grown back! And some radishes too.
• I wonder if I'm picking my radishes a tad on the early side? They are very small but very tasty.
  
• I planted another small lettuce planting today (Burpee heatwave looseleaf type). I guess I will make one more small planting this spring, and after that, I think it will be too hot for even heat-resistent lettuce.
  
• I'm reading The New Victory Garden by Bob Thomson and am getting all kinds of good ideas from him. It's a very thorough book.
  
• I'll be planting melons and cucumbers soon. Starting gourds. Planting squash and pumpkins. And planting tons of low-maintenance annual flowers in the backyard.
  

It's very cool to look out the window and see so many plants out in my garden. I can't believe that this is real. It's been a dream of mine for so long.

Weekend Projects

Today, I went and bought landscape fabric to cover my little coneflower bed. I plan to rake off the mulch and paper, fertilize and add soil, put down the fabric, cut slits and plant my little seedlings (20). Then, I plan to put paper over the patch right next to the sidewalk where the grass grows extremely vigorously (will already have landscape fabric on it) and put a rubber mulch strip down on top of that. I am hoping that this will be a very, very low maintenance bed!

A couple of pink tulips are blooming. I'm not real happy with the tulips. They seem to be a mix that blooms at all different times, so I won't get a big mass bloom. I may cut off the leaves after they bloom and start with a new mix next year.

I think I'm going to go ahead and plant the peppers out tomorrow.

I've got to put one shasta daisy and one banana pepper seedling in peat pots.

I really want to plant some flowers. I have some ideas for a row of flowers around the edges of my vegetable garden space. I don't know how much I'll be able to get to until next weekend.

The shasta daisies got really unhappy in my seed starters, and I had to move them all to peat pots in a potting mix. The coneflower is still in my seed starter, looking very happy and healthy. I hope it remains so out in its new home.

I bought a new plant friend today, a greek oregano plant, at Lowe's. I originally tried to grow oregano from seed with little success. And then I read that its best to buy a young plant because you can't reliably grow a really tasty oregano from seed--each plant will taste a little differently. Also, I had plain oregano seeds, and Greek oregano is supposed to be the best for cooking. All according to Ed Smith of the The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, anyway.

I'll have to get a new clay pot for it. My perinneal herb collection now includes:

• peppermint
• spearamint
• sage
  
• garlic chives
• chives
• St. Johns Wort
• oregano

I got a nice new load of garden books at the library today. I wish I were less tired so I could stay up and read them. I have water my houseplants before I crash.

The Self-Sufficient Suburban Gardener by Jeff Ball

Title: The Self-Sufficient Suburban Gardener
Author: Jeff Ball

Review: I found this book at the library. I thought the title was a bit overly ambitious, but I took it home anyway, and I really liked it. It has many ideas for growing most of ones own produce in the backyard. Many of the ideas he presents (raised beds, crop rotation, successive planting) are very much in vogue right now. The author's tone is pleasant and practical. One thing that strikse me funny is how gardening authors talk about how cheaply gardening can be done (but, of course, they themselves invest a sizable sum of money into their garden). Ball is no exception to this.

My only major criticism of the book is the chapter on backyard agriculture (bees, bunnies, and chickens). It's a purely speculative chapter with no personal experience to back up the ideas, nor any interviews with people who have. My husband's family did try the bunny thing one year (on their hobby farm), and let's just say that killing bunnies wasn't much fun for my husband's dad. I just think the author could have reduced that chapter to a paragraph, since it didn't contain much practical information.

Overall, a good read.

book reviews

Since I've read so many gardening books, and I'm not stopping anytime soon, I decided to start writing reviews. Plus, tonight I am plumb out of gardening books to obsess over. I must go to the library tomorrow and replenish my supply.

winter greens

These are the fresh greens I'd like to try for this winter:

• arugula
• corn salad
  
• spinach
• claytonia
• mustard
• sprouts

I want to see how much of the year I can keep us in tasty fresh vegetables.