Well, it's not actually in the garden today, but will be soon. Ordered up a 50-lb. bag of alfalfa meal to dig into the beds along with dried blood, bone meal, and greensand. Was hoping to have it for the weekend, as I want to get some peas in the ground on Saturday, but the alfalfa meal won't be in until Monday. I think I'll plant anyway & let that one bed go without.

Also ordered up a truckload of mulch to cover up where we started new beds and a rhubarb mound last year.

Started flats of seed last Sunday; so far romaine and butterhead lettuces are sprouted, as are mache, basil and crepis rubra. Waiting on poblano peppers, fennel and coriander. Will start another round in a week or two of squash and sunflowers.

In a few weeks, we'll be renting a tractor so Mr. Mora can spend his one-month layoff pulling stumps and leveling the ground where we had an acre's worth of trees felled last spring. Hoping to get a bank of daylilies planted in June or so.

received my scented geraniums today-
over weekend i bought beautiful violas,pansies in addition to strawberries, peas, and lettuce

The lovage is sprouting.

clb

I attacked my nemesis killer vine. It was threatening the lilacs, the beast! Threw a few pansies around the front walk, but it was half-hearted: my true feelings are bent on revenge for this awful strangulating tormenter. I felt a grizzly sense of satisfaction as I pierced it's roots.

Pray tell, what is this awful vine?

I call it "the killer vine," but I don't think that is the correct Latin name. I've stalked it for nearly ten years now, as it makes its evil way round my parent's garden. It curls around lovely trees AND shrubs, winding its way very tightly and somehow de-leaving them. Thankfully the neighbors weren't around because I was de-garotting their trees, too.

Ruby red lettuce and mesclun were planted on the "veranda" last weekend. Various herbage to follow this weekend.

Chives, lovage and asparagus are up and growing , peas, lettuce, parsley root, carrots and beets planted. Not bad at 51 degrees of latitude.

Temps still dropping a bit too low at night to safely put in annuals (Ottawa, zone 5a). The flats under the lights downstairs are mostly doing well but a few seeds remain recalcitrant.

The trilliums are up and we have some daffs.

Fly

chiming in a little late here... but also a little late into the gardening season...

i just recently moved out to the sunset district (7 blks away from the beach, a blk from golden gate park) in san francisco. finally got around to clearing out the backyard from all the weeds and such. so i now have a clear area of good underlying soil that will be topped with about 2 ft of top soil. the garden will be about 3' x 18'... not too big but enough for this year.

i'm definitely going to grow as many different herbs as possible - various basil varieties, oregano, parsley, cilantro, etc... tomatoes, chives, onions, maybe some zuchini... hopefully i'll have enough room. i'll try and grow some peppers of sorts but not sure if there's enough sunlight out this way.

i'm really looking forward to having a garden after several years of apartment and urban dwelling.

Ate my first couple of Zephyr squash and waiting for the piccolo di parigi cukes to get big enought to eat. Right now, the first cukes are about 2" long. Very fat cukes, this one. I planted tomatoes late so they're only just blooming and setting fruit.

Yesterday, I planted all my annuals: impatiens, petunias, vinca vine, sweet potato vine. I also planted two grape tomato plants, three basil, two flat-leaf parsley, one sage, one rosemary, one thyme, all in planter boxes hanging from my balcony and rear-deck. Mint, as usual, is coming up on its own accord. Can't kill that stuff with napalm.

I finally gave up planting mint in the garden. I'd even tried planting in buried plastic buckets, but the stuff sent fresh shoots up over the rims of the bucket and continued its forward march from there. Two summers ago, when I planted a fresh herb garden at the new place, I simply bought a large (very) square terracotta planter and stuck one peppermint and one spearmint plant in it. By summer's end, both had begun to establish themselves in the garden. Thoroughly fed up, I stuck the pot in the garden cart and wheeled it off into the woods, where I unceremoniously dumped the contents.

Last summer, I was out walking the property line with my husband when we came across a lush 3' x 3' patch of peppermint and spearmint. At least it's out where it can do no harm. For a few years, anyway.

I think mint can grow in concrete.

Very, very jealous!

Last year, this thread, along with my primal urge to cook meat over fire, inspired me to hunt for an apartment with outdoor space. That was unsuccessful.

The urge is upon me again. S. will be thrilled to hear this. Not.

Just getting started preparing the beds:


Not much to look at. We got a load of mulch delivered last night, so all around the beds will be getting a fresh layer.

These are my seed starts:


Poblano peppers, fennel, cilantro, basil, mache, romaine and butterhead lettuce (will start more greens and herbs directly in the garden), a lot of sunflowers and some crepis rubra.

I'm going to try and do weekly photo report every Friday.

Edit: fix pic links.

i'm so pissed... my roommate's dog tore up the entire garden after being very obedient about not going in it.

GG--please post more pictures. I am so jealous of your beds.

No tomats?

One of my basil plants already died, for no reason. Bastard.

When I was in VT, I was still sleeping between a baby wool blanket (under the bottom sheet) and my down comforter... it is very chilly there.

Rhubarb, garlic and fresh mulch.

Yesterday we dug out the beds and planted tomatoes (Brandywines, Sweet 100's, Lemon Boys and Early Girls) and also some tarragon and 4 blueberry bushes. Mulched everything and now I need to get a soaker hose as it looks like a dry spring so far.

finally replanted and put up a plastic mesh barrier. if the dog fuxors it up again i'll have to sell dog chops to get the bux to redo it (my roommate is a butcher.)


























only kidding about the dog chops.

Friday update...


Not much to look at...I decided to sift the top 3" of soil in those first two beds, where I'll be starting seeds that will appreciate the fine soil...greens, carrots and beets. For the beds where I'll be plunking in seedlings, it doesn't matter so much. Starting squash plants indoors this weekend. Maybe try and find some shallot sets to put in the ground.

20 years of composting appears to be paying off. The soil looks like black gold and into it we we thrust Black Beauty eggplant, some sweet Italian peppers, okra, brussel sprouts (these are given in trade for my efforts as my folks won't eat them) and 4 'maters: Abe Lincoln, Black Brandywine, Russian Plum and Yellow Plum. Looking forward to seeing what pleases his Lordship, the mega-gi-normic possum who grazes there regularly. And then, out comes the Zoo Do.

My artichokes are just about ready to start eating and it looks like there is going to be a lot of them. They never get very big here in the PNW but they are very good, especially baked with fava beans in a chicken broth. Now if I could push the favas along...... It's been raining every day and Spring vegatables, like my peas and favas, are just sitting.

Dave

Dave, I just did a pile of baby artichokes on the grill last night. I pared them down to yellow buds, cut off the top third, halved them and blanched them for 5 minutes in well-salted water with lemon juice and crushed garlic. drained and shocked them in cold water. Brushed them with a slurry of crushed garlic, fennel pollen, lemon juice, OO and S&P and grilled them until they were nicely caramelized. They were delicious.

(BTW, I did NOT grow them myself).

two weeks ago:




my azaleas are blooming now, and my irises will be next.

I'm only half - the daughter of a Dutch war bride and her Canadian soldier ticket-outta-there

I'm lucky enough to live in Ottawa, which has received gifts of tulip bulbs every year since WWII for hosting the Dutch royal family during the occupation. Ottawa hosts The Canadian Tulip Festival each year. Although sometimes it is still too cold when festival time rolls around, the city is simply awash with tulips this year.

(Do scroll down to the Floral Hair Competition photos on that last link!)

My crab apple tree is in bloom right now too. Best lookin' tree on the street (if I must say so myself)!

Fly

now that our dog is no longer a threat to the garden since fencing was put up, i started noticing some of the plants were being feasted on by some mystery pest. no caterpillars, slugs or any of the other normal critters were found, but slug traps filled with beer solved the mystery - earwigs! turns out slug traps work really well with earwigs as a dozen or more end up drowning every night in each trap. every other day my garden (or rather the pests) consumes two bottles of beer. drunk bastards!

My basil is rocking! Never had it do so well so quickly after being planted. As a result, I've had no choice but to prepare lots of pizza.

I had lots of salads this weekend. Baby arugula picked seconds before eating -- oh yeah, this is living.

Too grey and cold for anything meaningful to be happening in the garden. Though all the greens I seeded last week are sprouted, as the beets are starting to. Put fennel and shallot starts in the dirt on Saturday.

DRColby: fennel pollen is the pollen of fennel flowers. Ground fennel seed is an okay sub, but the pollen is more floral, less assertive but somehow more pervasive. I order it from Zingerman's online. I'm also planting a lot of fennel in the garden this year, mostly for the bulbs, but I'm curious to see if I can harvest my own pollen.

what a fantastic thread, can't believe I've not read it before.

My garden is about the size of one of GG Mora's beds! Most plants in the garden I have no idea what they are, in fact, half of them could be weeds but if they look pretty I just keep them. I have thriving pots with rosemary, lemon thyme and garlic. My sage died last winter and I have just planted basil, lollo rosso and coriander. At the begining of the month I sowed some tomato seeds under a propagator, varities Costoluto Fiorentino and F1 Tumbler. Last night I tranferred the seedlings to pots although it is hard to imagine them growing into big tomato plants as they look so small at the moment.

Not in London but most sizeable garden centres have three or four varieties of tomato plants. I am looking for Sungolds as I didn't get round to growing from seed this year, but haven't found any yet.

My rosemary, which grows like a weed, has smothered the thyme. Must get another thyme plant.

Even weedkiller (which fell onto the mint by accident) hasn't killed the stuff.

clb,. I tend to oder a lot of my plants from:
Sarah Raven
and
Crocus

I am also eagerly awaiting delivery of some window boxes from Mill Lane Gardening Project in West Hampstead. They are a charity for people with learning difficulties who make the boxes and fill them with plants for you.

also, I posted this on the annoyance thread but it might be more appropriate here. Do cats like coriander? They ate about 75% of my seedlings the other day. Grrr.

Inspired by GG Mora, I bought a tomatillo plant at the market on Saturday. Unfortunately my only option is to plunk it into a big container, which I did. Do they really grow to 8 feet?

GG -- besides thinking happy thoughts of salsa verde, any other words of wisdom?