Annie, Violet and Alicia

Gimpy

Lucy

Daisy (Don’t pick on her, she’s on her meds)

Bella Mia

Zu Zu Petals

Ron Weasley

Holly Berry & Fudge Ripple

 

I finally built the two new raised beds yesterday. Their not completely ready but will be very soon. I can’t wait until it’s veggie planting time. I’ve got some radishes in the back left corner but their just not that exciting. I also have some cilantro and garlic coming on. I want to see some big fat tomatoes and squash!

And here’s a couple random back porch shots. I’ve started adding a lot more porch plants back there. I think I was making a big mistake in the past by trying to plant a lot of stuff in the ground next to the porch. The dogs just will not let anything grow there. It ended up looking like devastation more than the paradise I want.

While digging around in The Empress of Dirt, I found this great video about Novella Carpenter’s Urban Farm. She’s a cool lady. You should watch.

I just scored a new P-Touch® label maker to help create more readable plant makers. It uses the new laminated super sticky labels for outdoor use. (Yes, I’m a label goob.)

How many times have I planted a vegetable and forgotten where/what it is until it has come up. Now, I’ll know. Just like a little filing cabinet of seedlings. (Dork)

 

Ok, forgive the title. I heard it tonight on America’s Next Top Model and now I can’t stop saying it.It’s just so stupid.

I finally updated the look of the site. Finally. I think I will stick with it a while. If you noticed a few weeks that the site was changing almost daily, it wasn’t you. It was me. I kind of suck at editing code so I’ve been playing around with the template, trying to learn how to edit it without breaking it.

Since we enlarged the vegetable garden to almost twice the size as last year, I put in a new raised bed today. My tiller needs repair so I dug and mixed this sucker with a mean shovel. For those Grapenuts that feel we should throw away our motorized equipment for the more Earth friendly hand tools, you can here by kiss my tired butt. That is the most backwards idea in gardening. Only my opinion of course.

For Trudie, I present my clearance table Knockout Roses.

Uncle Billy sent me a couple new Century Plants. I really love these things.

Of course you know what this chic is. If you don’t, you should be ashamed.

 

For weeks I stared at those big fat buds and assumed they would never open. BOOM! I love it!

 

I am not a very good gardener. My wife calls me a bumbler in my yard. A great description as that is just what I do. I hope you’re not reading this in hopes of gleaning nifty tips and what not. If you have vast experience with gardening, you will probably get a kick out of hearing about my latest bumblings.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been in garden ramp up mode. Cleaning up mountains of leaves. Cruising my neighborhood for even more leaves. (I make my own mulch. Just me and the lawn mower and lots of time.) Planting bulbs. Watching as my bulbs get carted off by those damned squirrels. Clearing out the weeds from my vegetable garden raised beds. Building more raised beds.

Last week, I got a large part of the vegetable garden plan complete. (I must have a plan. Must.)
Some of these vegetables are only staying for the cool weather.
My first cool weather harvest was, shall we say, small.

I think the winter we’ve had really beat the crap out of my plants. Never fear! I’ve started some new cool weather plants!

Just look at those little cabbage seedlings. So full of potential. I did leave one lone cabbage plant in the ground to see what happens.

It certainly looks better than the other ones I snatched up already. I’ll give it a few more weeks and see if it makes something worthy of the Kroger isle.

This year, I’m starting a strawberry patch. So far, I’ve added a load of composted horse manure and mixed it all together.

I can’t decide if I should plant the Everbearing or Junebearing. Or if I should buy these starter roots(super cheap)

or the small plants.

I’ll think on that some more.

Ok, so I’m pretty excited about spring coming soon. Bring on the sun rays!