Well Underway

We got frost last night at The Slice.  May 16, 2014 and we got FROST.  I had to scrape my windshield this morning before we could head out to the market. Just what sort of nonsense is that anyway?

Hmmm?

In spite of the overnight low approaching freezing, the gardening season is well underway.  All the plants seem to be doing quite well.  Except the ones I tried to grow in the greenhouse.  Not so much grow, I guess, as start.  I have purchased replacement plants for all the seeds that haven't really grown and they are doing pretty well.  The ones I've tried to start are also planted in the garden, but they are tiny and refusing to grow so much as a single new leaf.  I hope with warmer weather, they'll change their outlook and join us for the summer.

Yes, the greenhouse is pretty much a disaster.  But it's okay.  We've just started out with this greenhouse business and we pretty much immediately ran headlong into the learning curve.  All is well.  We just can't regulate the temperature well enough yet to get things to roll along as I expected them to.  Silly me.  Jump in with both feet?  Why not?

But I do have some really nice things happening in the gardens right now.  We are the proud parents of a bouncing baby Golden Curls Willow tree.

It's much more impressive in person.

Along the driveway, we've added two  more fruit trees:

Blurry!  For some reason I just can't get a good picture on this side of the drive.

The two trees in the back are a plum and another apple.  The front apple tree has these:

Spent apple blossoms.  I am fervently hoping for apples!

Out in front along the street side of the walk, we put in a couple of pear trees.  I took pictures, but you can't really tell what they are exactly. 

Not all of the new additions are plants.  We also added this cool gecko.

Here leezard, leezard, leezard...

Around back in the vegetable garden, the new tomato bed is planted and mulched in.

Those plastic bags around the tomato cages are a lifesaver!

Of course, I just realized that I promised a blog about how I use those all too numerous plastic shopping bags to protect my tiny tomato seedlings.  And of course I have no pictures of my process.  I guess I'll have to bust out a spare tomato cage and a plastic bag.  Sheesh.

The asparagus is doing splendidly.  In fact, of the 30 crowns I planted last year 27 have returned.  I expected half to die so I planted heavily.  We had to put some bracing in to keep the ferns from falling over.  I need to come up with a more permanent solution to this problem.

In the garden proper, the beds are filling in nicely.

And, try as I might, I can't get all of the potato and onion bed in one shot.

Looking good!

The flowers are blossoming all over the place in spite of the unseasonably cool weather.

Grandma Vi's fern-leafed peonies.

 I love those peonies!  I can't find them anywhere anymore and I'm so glad I have Grandma's to plant here.  They took a bit of a beating in a recent storm.  Still, this is nothing compared to the tornado ravaged countryside a mere 30 miles from here in the small towns of Beaver Crossing, Cordova, and Sutton Nebraska.  Scary stuff, huh?

What I love about my garden is its resilliance.  These chives were grown by my mother-in-law in a different part of the state and have been in a pot, in a bed, in a raised bed, in a pot again, dug up and transplanted numerous times.  Yet here it is, flowering like nothing ever happened.  So pretty.

Well, I guess that's it for now.  I leave you today with this picture of some creepy phlox.  Have a good one.

Mid-spring Garden Update

Yeah, you'd never know it from the weather forecast, but it really is mid-spring.  I hear we're expecting a couple inches of snow tomorrow night.  What a bother.  I'll have to be out and about covering plants, I guess.

You see, I paid attention to the weather forecast this weekend.  It said nothing about a cold front or the potential for snow in the near future.  I figured we might be done.  We'll see about that.  But the problem is I set all my pretty little pepper seedlings out in their pots this weekend.

I'm a numbskull.  Yep.  I did it.

But that's not the update part:

• We finally finished up the much anticipated berry bed!  I have room for 3 raspberries, a gooseberry and about 18 strawberry plants one of which has given me a berry already.

• Although it's not strictly a part of the garden per se, we planted a State Fair apple tree on Friday.  It was Arbor Day after all.  And I wanted an apple tree.  Like my little white painted wire fences around my tree and new shrubs?  Yeah, I thought of that all by myself.  You can use it if you want.

• The bush cherries I ordered arrived last week and I got them in the ground on Saturday.  Little sticks with tiny little buds on them.  I noticed last night that some of the buds are becoming leaves already.
• The early plantings are thriving in the cool and damp spring we've had so far.  The onions have never looked better.  Every single onion, garlic clove and shallot I planted has sprouted, I think.  The peas are finally growing and the spinach is finally getting actual leaves.  We thinned the radishes last night and munched on the thinnings.  Very radish-y.  It has me reconsidering trying my hand at growing sprouts in the kitchen.  I can imagine how wonderful radish sprouts would be in stir fry.

• I'm trying brussel sprouts for the first time this year.  That's them under the milk jugs.  Long ago, a friend of mine grew some in his garden and I remember thinking they looked a little like aliens when I discovered them hanging in his garage in November.  He was still getting sprouts at Thanksgiving.  I'm not a big fan of sprouts, but maybe if I grow my own, I could be.  I never liked tomatoes until I grew my own.  I know, right?  Crazy.
• The only thing I'm concerned about are my potatoes.  I haven't seen a single sprout out of them yet.  Maybe they rotted in the pots?  Maybe they're taking their sweet time?  I'll give them awhile yet.  It's still early and it's been unseasonably cold.

So that's where I'm at.  I was hopeful to get some more planting done this weekend but between the rain and potential snow, I doubt it.  My tomatoes will have to wait another week or so.

And now, here is a lovely picture of my new fish: