FH and YC's 2008 Garden

Did end up at Swanson's, with A. She ended up buying five roses; all very pretty: Dreams Come True, Diana, Peace, Black Magic, and Strike it Rich. We (FH) planted them in the mulched area beside her driveway, where they look like they've been all along.

So, our plant haul:

Peppers: Beaver Dam (heirloom, sweet/mildly hot), Healthy (OP, sweet) and King of the North Green Bell

Tomatoes: Black Cherry, Cherokee Purple, Principe Borghese, Glacier

Mint: Kentucky colonel mint, Moroccan spearmint

Yellow crookneck squash

Cippolini onions

Leeks

On the plus side, we didn't wait in the checkout line very long. On the other hand, I also didn't get most of the plants I had wanted to get. There were barely any plants left. I'm sad I didn't get either the shiso or sorrel, or any of the heirloom cherry tomatoes.

Moral of the story: even if the line is super long, go on Saturday for selection.

We might make it up to Sky Nursery later today so I will update with the plant haul later.

It's finally warm enough to go outside to get some gardening done! Also, we had the first P-Patch meeting for the growing season on Saturday. The meeting was short, so we turned the scrubby fava beans into the ground and met a few fellow gardeners.

Then, Fuchsia Day at Fred Meyer. Varieties I got:
Pink marshmallow
Blue satin
Harry Gray?
Swingtime
Lena

Also picked up 6 geraniums for A; we'll see how they do.

Cut blackberries and the overgrown vinca back.

Also pruned the roses at FH's mom's.

I need to get to planting!

• One pot of Italian flat-leaved parsley (that ended up having nothing short of a dozen parsley starts)
  
• two genovese basil starts (I forgot to start those this year)
  
• "Jaune Flamme" tomato (the seeds I got didn't germinate, try again next year)
  
• "Japanese Black Trifele" tomato
  
• Artichoke, "Green Globe", bennybot's experiment
  
• mint julep

Let's see, what's happened... I started tomatoes, started the cucumber seeds I got from Richard, transplanted the lettuce, kale, rocket, broccoli into cellpacks, and weeded dandelions from the yard. I think at this point, I have filled an entire yard waste bin full of dandelions. I should have taken a picture, but was far too tired. I really hope the yard waste gets solarized, but I think it must, as it's also our food waste.

Anyway, on to the fun part, the pictures!

The herbs, at least, think it's spring. Here's the thyme and oregano. I think my oregano could be modelling on a seed packet cover, somewhere. Maybe even a centerfold, but not that I had anything to do with it. The thyme is looking suddenly a little ragged, I think it's about to flower. But both pairs of herbs have doubled since my last pictures. I stuck my foot in one of the pictures to show some scale. I have a very reasonable size 7 foot, too.

Here's the catnip, also huge. Notice how the leaves get bigger and bigger as you get up to the top of the plant.

And the sage, about to flower.

My peas, which I have made to look prettier by dramatic camera angle!

Sad little stunted spinach

Inside, the zucchini are really taking off, and the cucumbers are puttering about. All the other little guys are growing along as well.

And finally! I am on the tomato bandwagon. These are seeds from WinterSown.org. The bottom left in the plastic tub are peppers.

Oh yeah, p.s. Happy Earth Day. I'm a little grumpy about it this year, as it's turned into such a fad. I guess it's good to have awareness, but as a fad, people don't understand the reasoning behind doing whatever... so it's all enthusiam with perhaps, misdirected direction.

9 April 2008

I have new cucumber seeds compliments of Richard (of Sinfonian Garden Adventure fame)! These will be slicing cucumbers, a hybrid called "Green Slam" from Territorial. I met up with him for lunch downtown. I traded him some of my pickling cucumber varieties for his slicer. It was supposed to rain today, but clearly our lunch date was too important and the skies graciously cleared for a lovely sunny day. Seattle-sunny, actually. For any other city, it would've been a Mostly Cloudy day. Time permitting, I'll put these in a coffee filter fold to soak. The other ones are only about a week and a half old, and are working on their stub of a true leaf.

All the sprouts are growing quite nicely. Even the corn mache is slowly poking up and turning a nice deep green. I have about five wild arugula sprouts. They are so tiny! The 4 o'clocks kept growing like I never pulled them from the peat pots. The ball summer squash is going to be huge. I saw the loop emerge two nights ago, and last night, it had already unfurled. The seed leaves are HUGE, almost beaver paddles. Then again, the cucumber seed leaves are also huge, considering how small a seed they used to be in. I need to start the acorn and spaghetti squash, I think. Hopefully, I won't regret the plethora of squash at the end of the summer... still, I'm quite pleased with how easy it is to grow them to purchased seedling size.

I bought some nylon-coated wire last weekend, should be able to get some good trellises out of that. Thanks GardenGirl!

11 April 2008

Sproutling picture time! I could probably stand to put these out in the garden now, but something has been eating my radish greens so I want them to be a bit bigger before planting out. Also this heat wave is so novel that I think it won't last. What's this "summer" thing people talk about, anyway?

The squash has grown incredibly in the last five days (left to right). It's scary. I have four beaver tails formed, and probably two to follow. Guess I'll be potting these up this weekend! The smaller leaves are the cucumbers, the two huge ones and the two behind are zucchini squash. No, I don't know what I'm going to do with four plants worth of monster zucchini, why do you ask? (I suppose two will go in the P-Patch.)

Four o'clocks are doing quite well. I guess they'll go in one of the side beds, eventually.

Leafy veggies are also doing quite well at just under two weeks old. I'll be planting these into separate containers this weekend.

And finally, a few shots of my house and neighborhood at sunset tonight, just to inspire jealousy. Every once in awhile, the rain dries, the clouds lift, and we are firmly reminded of the beautiful place in which we live. ....wait, no, that's a lie! Don't move here! :D :D :D :D