We ordered some seeds and plants from Gurney's in February. They already sent the chamomile, lavender, zucchini and spaghetti squash seeds. They'll send my lavender plants and my butterfly bush soon, I hope.
The children and I used egg cartons to start our flower seeds on the kitchen table. The lavender and chamomile are already sprouted. But the columbine isn't. That seed might have been too old. It's been sitting around in my cupboard for awhile. I plan to transplant the seeds to my back yard sometime in April. I just have to figure out what will be the best place for them.
Yesterday, I was able to dig up some irises, rose bushes, and an unknown flowering bush that were offered on Freecycle. Today, I planted them. The irises were all planted in the flower bed along the front of my house. I also was able to plant some at the corner of our front porch, where there was just bare dirt. I used to have mint growing there, but it finally was trampled to death. I put a little fence around my new iris transplants, to help prevent that.
I planted the 2 rose bushes out back in my rose bed. They filled in two spots where other rose bushes had not taken hold. (I guess that's what happens when you buy clearance roses outside of a grocery store.) Now we have 5 rose bushes there, and I'm hoping the two new ones will survive. They were old, well-established bushes, which gives me greater hope.
The unknown flowering bush is also planted in my back yard. Once we know what it is (and how big it will get), we may have to move it. I realized after I planted it, that it's position will make it hard to mow behind it. Oops! I guess I'll find out how much that bothers Steve when he sees it. I may end up moving it tomorrow!!
The butterfly bush that we bought will go on the other side of our deck from our current butterfly bush. This will be the third one we've planted in this spot. I'm not sure why the other one has flourished while the two we planted across from it have died. But we're willing to try again.
We should have strawberries this year. We did get a couple last year. The plants are spreading, and today I pulled weeds around them. I need to put a little fence around them, but I have warned the children not to step on them. They're right by the door of the shed, and I can imagine bikes rolling across them, although the children swear they will be careful.
For our vegetable garden, we'll buy some tomato plants, cherry tomato plants, and bell pepper plants later. We'll be growing zucchini and spaghetti squash for the very first time (from seed). We tried garlic and onions the last two times we've gardened, but I think I'm going to add them to the carrots, beets, and potatos as unsuccessful attempts. They're just too diddly small in our clay soil. Hopefully as we continue to develop this garden plot, we can try again. It would be nice to get some cantaloupes again this year, and I'd like to try leaf lettuce again. We've never succeeded at peas, but we could try green beans again, I guess. (Not that I like green beans, but my family does.)
I love planting (although I hate weeding) and it's fun to plan and dream. I admit that I love planting flowers more than vegetable gardens. We've never had much money to landscape, but we've been able to transplant lilacs, irises, peonies, mint, and daylilies that others have given us. These have all survived much better than the bulbs we've bought and tried to plant in the past. The sad thing is that just when I get the yard looking the way I want it to look ... we'll move away to the farm, and I'll have to start over again. Well, I guess that's not all that bad. 
And thankfully, the farmhouse still has many plants and flowers that Steve's grandparents planted years ago. In fact, some of our irises, and our peonies came from the farmhouse yard.
Blessings,
April
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Mar. 16, 2007 - Untitled Comment