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6° Tomorrow and I'm Thinking About Gardening
My trusty iGoogle homepage's weather widget says it is going to be a frigid 6° tomorrow (not including wind chill, and that's windchill off of Lake Michigan, mind you!) You'd think that would be enough to keep us home, right?? Well not this homeschooling family! Oh no! We're heading to an indoor water park tomorrow with our field trip homeschool group! Can you imagine!?? First, I've never been to an indoor water park in my life! Secondly, the last water park we went to was in Hawaii, and I need to let go of those expectations because nothing will live up to those experiences!LOL
I saw that Monica, over at The Homespun Heart ,started seedlings off at her house in South Carolina. Wow, I'm jealous, I admit it.
But it got me to wondering when we should start seedlings indoors here, too. I pulled out my gardening notebook (a composition notebook that I do need to decorate... mental note) and see that we planted last year's garden on May 6th. May 17th we had a frost so DH and I covered the plants with a sheet. (If memory serves I think we had another slight frost, but I don't see that I wrote that in the notebook.)
Last year's garden.
That perked me up a bit, knowing it's only another two-ish months before I can really start thinking about ground planting! WOOHOO! I probably could read up a bit and see what garden specimens would even be okay planting earlier than that.
The pesky squirrels will be our biggest foe, at least until the plants are well established. Thankfully our chicken-wire fencing and pot covers worked like a charm.
I've not yet decided WHAT I actually want to plant this year. Our tomatoes were a royal pain last summer. Just too many, too big, too unruly ( even caged up.) Well, the green zebras were *okay* and the cherry tomatoes were a delight. I know we'll plant the cherry tomatoes-- maybe I'll look for a smaller variety of other tomatoes as the big red, yellow, and pinks were TOO BIG, and the green zebras weren't as big a hit with the family as I'd hope.
Radishes-- definitely will plant some of those, but on a smaller scale, and more regularly.
We absolutely LOVED the broccoli plants last year. I had only planted three and by the end of the season wished I had planted more. However, DH and I have been talking about the broccoli and are still undecided about it. It requires quite a bit of space and since we're working in VERY limited space (only that which the Navy used to have planted with crappy bushes and weeds, before DH cleared it) we have to really be certain what we want in the ground.
DH has requested some hot peppers, while I am actually waffling about (green) peppers completely. If I opt to plant peppers I might do them in containers. I just don't know yet.
Cauliflower is out. Our four plants last year never took off right, ended up in a total failure. Too much work for this small plot of land.
Carrots and lettuces I'll definitely do again. Not so much on the beans, though. I just don't have enough space to make bean harvesting worth the time. I can't grow enough beans at any particular time to make a harvest even big enough for one meal. Maybe some day in the future, in a future home.
What really has me excited though is the prospect of FLOWERS!!! I truly adored the result of the cheapo packet of seeds that bloomed into wonderful wildflowers. I'd like to get MORE flowers out this year and in more places. The peonies didn't take off at all so those will be dug up and replaced, I'm thinking, with easier/quicker flowers. The lavender, on the other hand, was super (and is over-wintering right now quite nicely.) I'll definitely plant morning glories again (and maybe even more of them.) Last year, the ones in the pot at the bird feeder pole were slow starting but once they started climbing worked wonderfully at keep them squirrels away from the feeders. They just got too annoyed trying to make their way up the entangled pole. LOL (mental note-- I do want to buy a squirrel baffle or two this year!)
DD enjoyed her special pot of flowers so I'll let her pick something new this year as well as start some inside, too.
A lot more blogging about gardening, I'm sure, is to come. It's nice to look forward to the lovely spring & summer weather. I've seen way too much snow lately and I'm itching for a change. I did find some nice maps to add to my gardening notebook. Check them out and see where your location falls. Have you started thinking about this year's vegetable and/or flower garden? What do you plan to plant? Drop me a comment and let me know. If you have blog entries (especially with PHOTOS) about your gardening experiences, please leave a link, too!
P.S. (mental note-- to buy a new patio umbrella, since the one we got from my step-dad last year completely broke in half during a big storm. *sigh*)
Is it Wanna Waves? Just curious. It looks like you might live in my region and some of my friends have been to that one. I think the homeschool day is tomorrow?
gina
SNOW! Yeah. It hasn't snowed here since our one day in December and now that my brain accepted a no snow winter and began moving on to spring...SNOW! The forsythia looks pretty with snow on the yellow flowers and our tree buds look huge covered in snow! WEIRD!
Hi there! Just stopping by to see what you are up to. :-) You asked what zone we are in, I totally forget, but I plant on Mother's Day. :-) Have a great week!
Last year's garden.
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