Spring Tidings to You!

Look whats popping up around the house these days!

Pansies: Viola tricolor

Strawberry blossoms: Fort Laramie variety (I think. But these are June bearing and they have bazillions of runners in the summer...) Fragaria ananassa

California Poppy Volunteers : Eschscholzia californica

Daylillies:  genus Hemerocallis

Grape Hyacinth volunteers: genus Muscari

Forsythia bush: Forsythia floribunda

And I planted my spring veggies! 

Can I get a Hey Now for sunshine and warmer weather? Hey Now!

Today

We were talking about energy, and how ultimately all of our energy (at least the edible kind) comes from the sun. We were talking about where our food gets its energy. We had a conversation like this:

"Ok french fries, what are those"

class:"Potatoes"

"alright, where do potatoes get their energy?"

class: "..."

"Well, do they make their energy or eat it?"

Class:"..."

"*heave sigh* Are they plants or animals?"

"a-ni-mals?"

"What?? You don't know if a potato is a plant or an animal???"

Kids, its time to get back to nature. You will not need to spear hunt potatoes. Get a shovel.


Yeesh.

Tomatoes- Blossom End Rot

Today's yield:

We're still munching on the carrots I pulled out last week. Unfortunately I noticed that already my Early Girl tomatoes are plagued by blossom end rot. That means my Romas are sure to follow suit. Fortunately, it is fixable and preventable. Its not actually a fungus, its a vitamin deficiency. Calcium to be exact. the developing cells don't get enough of this essential vitamin, so each cell dies. This "disease" especially afflicts high yield tomatoes. As all the tomatoes grow so quickly it depletes the soil of nutrients. For this reason, tomatoes are known collectively as "heavy feeders" meaning they need alot of fertilizer.

Therefore, the fix for blossom end rot is going to be a high calcium fertilizer like fish bone meal or something similar. The developing tomatoes may still have the rotten spots, but the little guys and any new tomatoes after fertilizing will be just fine. Blossom end rot looks like this, but since it isn't a fungus you can cut that part out and still eat the tomato, it will just be ugly.

I hope your tomatoes fare better than mine so far! Happy gardening.

Hopeful as the Break of Day

Ever notice how sunflowers track the sun's path throughout the day before they bloom? Once they do bloom they often face east. Mine do.

Its a wonderful image of hope and expectation for a beautiful, brand new day.

I had a job interview a couple days ago with an expectation for a second soon. I'm hopeful.

My sister-in-law is attempting a new (to her) fertility treatment. I'm hopeful.

I'm filled with joy when the day dawns quietly over the roof of the sky.

From an Eskimo Song

Garden

I'm pretty pleased at how my garden is coming along this year! We've made some significant improvements from last summer (ie. we have a hose instead of carrying water in a 5 gallon bucket...) which was a great learning experience. I also added several new flowers and veggies to the garden, and it has been wonderful and delicious so far.

In the ground this year we have:

Veggies-

Romaine lettuce

Baby leaf lettuce and something or other- the stuff you see in a spring mix salad form DOLE

Sugar snap peas

Nantes carrots

Danver carrots

Ft. Something strawberries

Armenian burpless cucumber

Black beauty zuchhini

Some giant pumpkin

Blue Lake Green Beans

Spicy globe basil

Beefsteak tomato

Early girl tomato

2 Roma tomatoes

All from seed this year but the Basil and Tomatoes! We'll try those when I have actual facilities... in 10 years or so....

Flowers-

California poppies

Dahlias (not sure which bulbs survived the thrashing from Luna this year, it was epic)

oodles of sunflowers of various varieties

Wildflowers from a seed packet from my Momma (I have cosmos, some other daisy, and it looks like Lupine coming up from those seeds, I'll let you know when they bloom!)

Bearded Irises

Daylillies

and other potted flowers

The Lettuce has been feeding us at least one good sized salad every day for the last 3 weeks, and its still going strong. I figure with the money we saved not buying heads of lettuce or pre-washed salad mixes we've already made up the money we spend on compost and starts and the hoe this year! That doesn't even include all the strawberries we got or the other things that aren't ready yet. (though the tomatoes are the size of grapes, and the sample carrot I picked yesterday was almost ready)

Everything seems to be growing just fine, and now that its all established, it doesn't mind the heat too much either. The biggest problem we've had so far was slugs- I had to plant my peas 3 times because the sluggies kept gnawing them all the way down. But we got some pet safe slug bait and they've done just fine.

Spring Break Thoughts: Garden

My garden is (mostly) coming along already, and I'm very excited. Though I do have an uninvited guest. Morning Glory might be the bane of my existence right now. There are some very pretty "domesticated"varieties that are sold in seed packets, but my nemesis is not pretty, is not an annual, and refuses to die from anything short of napalm (which I'm sure my brothers would obligingly concoct, but I want my house to stay standing). They are coming up because the main root system was never pulled out last year (thanks)...

Aside from this infestation, things are going well. I salvaged my strawberries from last year from the last house along with a Hosta, Jacob's ladder, and some Coral bells (I forgot the exact variety). These perennials are all doing well, and the strawberries have even flowered! mmm...

As far as seeds go I planted some California poppies that are coming up nicely, and just recently lettuce and carrots. The only things not coming up well are the sugar snap peas. Not sure if they're being strangled by morning glories or eaten by slugs. Maybe I'll start some indoors and see how they fair.