These are the iris my mom so kindly brought me and planted the day we moved into this house.  This is the first year they've bloomed.  Below is M's rose, given to her on her bapstism, by my friend Joan.  The last is the window box of pansies, planted right before a hard frost but still bravely blooming, on my porch.

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Here's what May 1 was like here.  You can imagine why things are growing extremely slowly in my garden.

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I love the idea of compost.  I love producing something so valuable-- earth-- out of what I grew up thinking of as garbage.  I love pulling the moist, black soil out of the composter and adding it to Colorado's dismal clay soil and watching things grow.  It's like magic: the best kind of magic that God ordained from the days of the Garden.

Our first composter (in Chicago) was always full.  Contained in a tall, black garbage-can like composter, it was impossible to turn and yielded a little compost each spring, which we dilligently worked into the already-rich soil.  I still loved it, but I wanted MORE.  FASTER.  (It's the American way, really.)

When I bought our first house in Denver and planted a large garden plot, I invested in a tumbling composter.  It promised yields in 6-8 weeks depending how often I turned it and how much sun and moisture it got.  My problem was this: because we produced raw compostable materials (i.e. kitchen scraps) in waves-- and more quickly than it could turn out compost-- we were always adding fresh scraps on top of half-made compost in the barrel, and it was never done.  So in the winter I'd throw out my scraps again, and each spring I'd get one batch of beautiful compost that "cooked" in its black plastic tub all winter.

So my plan now is not to add to it continually, but let the batch of kitchen scraps (greens) + yard waste (browns) cook for 6-8 weeks.  I tumble it almost daily (in the summer, several times) and the batch we started in December is now done.  Yea!  (Not bad for winter!)  Which means I need a place to store the yard scraps and kitchen scraps that are waiting to go into the tumbler.

This is green plastic garden fencing (it was less than ten dollars for 25 feet.)  I cut about 10 feet and twisty-tied it together into a cylinder.  If it ever gets full (which I doubt) I can just lift the fencing up and move it several feet over, and then shovel all the compostables back into it, thus flipping, or turning all the compost.  Then every 6-8 weeks I'll fill the tumbler from this. 

My hope is to have enough compost not just to feed my SFGs, but also to add to the soil in all my other dargen spaces, since our soil is so poor.

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Because we are planning to work at our CSA and receive most of our summer produce from them, my garden planting has been very light this spring.  Actually, I think I'm going to end up getting more of what I want this year than last year, when my planting was tomato-heavy.

I tried to start broccoli from seed and killed what came up by going away for four days.  So I bought broccoli seedlings last week and put them in.  I also bought lettuce seedlings (Romaine, of which I neglected to buy seeds last year) and put those in.  Once I had all those tasty little green plants in, it became imperative to put up the bunny cages!  (When I call them that, people ask where the bunnies are.  I guess I should call them garden cages, since I'm trying to keep the plants IN and the bunnies OUT.)

Last year I used a soaker hose attached to the wall spigot to water, but the garden hose is so bulky and doesn't really get the water in the squares well.  I know, Mel Bartholemew (author of the Square Foot Garden method) says we should water our plants by hand, but sometimes it just doesn't happen, and having the drips lines on a timer gets it done.  So this year I found drip lines to attach to my sprinkler system and am going to install them next week. 

I planted peas and spinach seeds on March 17, but they did NOTHING for weeks, since we kept having frosts.  They're tiny-- but above ground-- and we'll see if they can produce anything before it's 80 degrees.

More soon on my new compost plan... those of you who live near me (you know who you are!) please don't turn me into the Compost Gestapo.

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Here are this year's seedlings.  I learned a few lessons from last year's garden:

1) Only one cherry tomato plant (last year, they choked out everything else except the carrots, and I'm the only one who eats them in the family...)

2) transplant them from the peat pellets much sooner.

Last year, I started seeds in the little peat pellets 8 or 10 weeks before our last frost date, and they were pretty bedraggled by the time I planted them in the garden.  This year, I put the peat pellets in pots 3 1/2 weeks after planting them, and already the roots were emerging from the pellets.  In the bigger pots, they won't need to be watered quite as often (I was watering them 3-4 times a day).  Plus, this way they're much more attractive on the table.

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Last Saturday it was 74 degrees (a record high), and then blizzarding Sunday.  Quite a change.  We spent all day Saturday outdoors-- clearing out the garden, finding sandbox toys that didn't survive the winter, etc.  The 4 year old neighbor boy who was over playing kept coming up with reasons he needed to play inside.  Every time he asked, I said, "We're playing outdoors at our house.  If you want to play indoors, you can go to your house to play," and he opted to stay here.  They had a blast with swords and staves made from sunflower stalks I pulled up.

I have the gardening bug... I want to get compost into my square foot gardens, and start some seedlings indoors.  This year-- no more than ONE cherry tomato plant goes into the garden!  (Hold me to it, friends.)

I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which is a delight.  The story of her family's year of eating only what they could produce themselves or buy locally is woven into her research about the industry that is our country's food machine... very interesting reading... and compelling.

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J was is very interested in all things carnivorous, and when he discovered that there were carnivorous plants he was so excited.  My parents gave him a terrarium and seed kit for his birthday a year and a half ago, and we finally planted them last September right after we moved.  Then we followed all the instructions and nothing happened.  For months.  He was so disappointed, we finally bought him a little Sundew plant from the Botanic Gardens.  The plant grew for awhile, and then it dried out (whoops) and died. 

We still have the terrarium sitting around, and the other day J took the top off and looked at the soil.  There were all sorts of green sprouts!  So almost fifteen months later, we finally have little tiny pitcher plants and venus flytraps growing.  Wow!

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My husband and the kids planted tulips around our back fence on Sunday.

I LOVE bulbs.  Tulips, crocus, daffodils, hyacinths... I love them.  Even more than other perennials, I love them because they come up when you're most desperate for spring.  They come up out of the Colorado snow.  They appear where you've forgotten you planted them.  They are brightly colorful when all you see is white... or brown.

So thank you, dear, for giving me a gift I won't open until spring... and then, when (and where) I least expect it.

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Every time I plant a garden, I learn so much.  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!) we've moved a lot recently, and I have to keep starting over.  Last spring, I built 3 square foot gardens, which should have given me 48 squares to plant (unless I did a spring, summer, fall planting-- but I'm not that ambitious... yet.)

From this year's garden, I learned:

1) Fewer cherry/grape tomatoes.  In March, all the little seedlings looked so fragile.  In May, they were still small and looked as if they would never survive a big wind... so I planted 8 plants.  I spent all of June pruning these plants, and they STILL took over, shadowing and choking out all my cucumbers, pumpkins, and corn.  Stacy (www.withgreatjoy.blogspot.com) pointed out that the lettuce came in June, and the cherry tomatoes didn't bear until August, so the plan to have cherry tomatoes on my salads didn't happen.  Next year: one plant (1 square)-- hold me to it, really.

2) Sauce tomatoes.  I love having lots of canned/frozen tomatoes for homemade spaghetti/pizza sauce in the winter.  I plantd 1 vine and 1 bush tomato plant, and had a good number but maybe not enough.  Next year: 3 plants (3 squares).

3) Cucumbers.  I didn't get any.  In fact,  I'm not sure I even saw the plant under all the tomatoes.  I'll try again for one plant, in one square, near the vertical frame to grow up.

4) Corn.  This was J's choice.  We had 2 plants in squares which produced 2 ears (both essentially empty husks).  Next year: I guess I'll let them choose again, but this year was a bust.

5) Butternut squash: this is still growing on my vertical frame and looks delicious, but I haven't tried it yet.  I think I'll again do one vine in one square, near the vertical frame.

6) Pumpkins: I planted 1 pie pumpkin vine, which the tomatoes suffocated.  I'll try again.

7) Herbs: I did one square each of basil, oregano, and parsley.  I used the basil fresh and didn't get around to making pesto... we'll see how I feel about it next spring.  If I want to make it, I'll put a few plants in.  I think no more that 1 of parsley or oregano.

8) Spring crops: lettuce: I planted 8 squares successively, and had too much lettuce for us.  I'll probably do less, and more spinach, although my husband isn't a spinach fan. 

9) Spring crop: peas: these didn't do very well-- either the sugar snap peas, or the others.  I'm not sure why.  But I love them so, I'll try again.

10) Beans: edamame and bush beans.  We had 6 edamame-- not worth the square.  We had a lot of beans, but I didn't see them under the tomatoes until they had all dessicated.  Whoops.  Better luck next year: 1 square.

11) Carrots: we need tons more.  O could eat them all day long.  Next year: lots more, and we'll plant them successively again so we can harvest some each week.

12) Parsnips: these were yummy!  But no more than 2 squares, since I'm the only one who gets excited about them.

13) Peppers: we need more.  They did well started inside, but then the tomatoes... you know.  (I can't bring myself to type it again-- sob!)  Next year: 3-4 squares.

14) Watermelon: we have one still ripening out there (the one I brought in earlier was terribly unripe when I opened it.)  It takes 2 vines to do seedless (1 seedd & 1 seedless) so we'll do that again.

15) Musk melon: I'm not sure where these went, but it's my all-time favorite melon in the world, so I'll try again.

That's not fully 48 squares, so we'll see where the winter garden fantasies lead me... beets?  Leeks (this year's didn't do well.)  Onions?  Hmmm... so many possibilities.

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I had trouble planning the garden this year (more on that later) but did indeed reap a plentiful harvest... mostly of green tomatoes (and ten thousand ripe, juicy cherry tomatoes.)

The mountains are getting lots of snow, and our nights are close to frost, so this weekend I closed down most of the garden.  I have my herbs, a watermelon and a few squash still ripening outside, but the green tomatoes are in.  And the parsnips, green onions, and carrots.

I'm going to try to ripen the tomatoes on the counter for a few days, and then I'll freeze them.  (I already made a bunch of spaghetti sauce and canned about 8 pints of ripe ones.)    Here's where the rest of them went:

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