Happy Spring

Spring is officially here. Yesterday was the first day of spring and I spent most of it outside!

While I didn't get to take all of the photos I wanted I did take a few to share with you.

I have started a bunch of seeds...
In this photo you can see all of the seeds I have started. I have lettuce, broccoli, broccolini, tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, basil, pumpkins, zucchini, and acorn squash.
This season should be quite delicious.
Here is a close up of my tomato and broccoli seedlings enjoying the sun through my kitchen window. It was so nice out that at some point I even opened the window so they could get some fresh air!

Here is another sign of spring, my rhubarb is crowning. It always looks so weird as it comes up, big red bulbous things that slowly break to reveal green or red leaves.

Hopefully the weather will be equally nice on my next day off and I can share some more photos and show you what else is happening in my small yard!

Enjoy the weather because Spring is Here!

Say hello to my little Bread!

This is my home made bread.
It is quite delicious. I made it the last night I was pleasantly surprised by how good it came out. It's already 1/2 eaten! I didn't use a recipe so I didn't know if it would really even taste like bread.
I believe I used the right combination of ingredients, my mom even had a bite and liked it! (I know she wasn't lying to make me happy because she came back for seconds), she is hard to please when it comes to trying new things.

It's great by itself or as a sandwich or wonderful toasted with peanut butter on top.

The only problem with my new bread is I didn't write down the ingredient quantities, so I don't know if I will even be able to make this bread again.

I know I used
Shortening
Hot water
Yeast
Honey
Whole Wheat Flour
All Purpose Flour
Milk
Oatmeal and
Flax Seeds

But I am not totally sure of how much of each I used.
I plan on making this bread again and I will definitely have to write down the recipe to share.

Merry Christmas

Tomatoes

My Tomatoes are still kind of small but they seem happy enough. They are getting lots of sunlight and are growing slowly but steady.

I have two different kinds of tomatoes growing from seed.

Heirloom:

And Roma:

I also bought one other heirloom tomato plant called green zebra. I couldn't help myself, it looked so nice and I got excited it was so big and happy looking.

I bought it not only because I got excited but because I thought it might inspire my little tomato plants to grow big and strong. Its only been a week, but it might be working. Once they all get nice and strong I will plant them in the soil. Until then I will keep them watered and in the sunlight to grow nice and strong.

I am back

Sorry for the long Hiatus, I feel like I have been running from one place to another for the last month. I am, however, thankful for all the rain we have gotten because it did a great job watering my garden. I am not sure I would have had the chance to do it everyday, otherwise. I think things have settled down now, so I will be able to water my plants and post things for all of you to read.

Anyway you didn't come here to read about my life, you've come to read about my garden. To make up for the long hiatus my goal for the weekend is to make at least one post a day, starting today. Each day I will show you something new that has happened within the last month. Above is an updated view of my small backyard. (a different angle today)

Okay, apology over. Now it's time to talk about my lettuce!
This is currently what my lettuce patch looks like. Not very full, right. The only type of lettuce growing is some "green ice." Here are some of the little seedlings.

So because my seeds aren't doing so well in the ground I decided to start some above the ground. I figured this would be a good idea for a few reasons:

• Less weeds in pots, so I will actually know what is a lettuce seedling and a what isn't
• I think lettuce does okay in pots, as long as there aren't to many squished together
• and I can move them around to better locations if I notice they aren't doing so well

First I started with some reused plastic pots. Some I had from when I bought flowers and a few others I found in someone's recycling bin. I got excited because I knew that I could reuse them instead of recycling them. Remember "Reduce, REUSE, Recycle" that means first you buy less, then you reuse what you can, and lastly you recycle what either can't be reused. Well I guess lastly you would throw things in the trash. But I digress.

I decided to use two pots of each type of lettuce except the Romaine and the Buttercrunch, because I am not sure that the seeds are still good (they are kind of old). So that means I have 10 pots of lettuce, hopefully they will all come up.

Here are the pots after they have been filled, seeded, and watered.


And here they are in their new home. This is one of the corners of the medium plot, where the tomatoes and the hot peppers will live once they are big enough. Right now is kind of like a nursery. You can kind of see it in the very top photo.

Fruits of my Weekend Labor

I thought I would share with you all some of the things I accomplished this weekend.


I transplanted my tomato seedlings into bigger pots


I planted a new row of Spinach and Kale (you can see the first row on the left)


I dug up all the weeds in the front of my porch and planted some flowers.


I planted some flowers in pots and moved my younger garlic to larger pots. If you look close behind the lite green pot you can see an asparagus spear.


More flowers and garlic


My onions are finally starting to sprout. I guess they just needed an 80 degree day.


And My Raspberry bushes are doing really well.

I Also...
planted a 1/2 row of Beets and a 1/2 row of Radishes
trans-planted some of the mirco-greens and planted more seeds outside
planted bean and pea seeds
and I planted Potatoes
This was a busy weekend but totally worth it

Did anyone else get anything accomplished?

Getting some Sun

It was such as nice day out on Saturday that I took my seedlings out side for their first taste of real sunlight. Tega seemed to be enjoying the sun almost as much as the seedlings.