Update from the Vegetable Garden

Garden update part three...it's been a few days now since I took these pictures and the weather has cooled of a LOT. There was a frost advisory last night and another for tonight. Here's hoping everything pulls through! I've brought a few things inside, but that's not possible for everything. That said, I present the veggie garden.

Look at those peas! They're climbing the tomato cages nicely, and if you look beyond, you can see the green beans I planted a couple weeks ago. It always amazes me how fast those puppies grow!

The first planting of lettuce is coming along nicely. I'm seeing salad in my near future!

And here is the beginnings of the second planting of lettuce. Last year I (unwisely) planted all my lettuce seeds at once and we were completely overrun. This year, I am trying successive plantings so I only get as much as I can eat at any given time.

If you look closely, you can see where the blueberry has been doing its pollinating thing. I'm really looking forward to some homegrown blueberries!

You can see how my seedlings are coming along. I put some of my tomatoes in larger containers to see if they'll grow larger root systems before I transplant them. I also wanted to be able to keep them in the greenhouse for a little while longer since we're getting some cooler weather.

Update from the Container Garden

I know, I know.....I promised to finish the garden update, but in the interest of not creating the longest blog post ever, I decided to split it into three sections: flower garden, container garden, and vegetable garden.

SO.....without further ado, here is the latest on the container garden....

I can't remember if I've gotten to show this guy off before now. This was Jacob's (my husband) St. Patty's day pick: a shamrock. I wasn't sure how long it would last, but it seems to be thriving.

Since it was so warm for so long (most of March was in the 80's here), I took the ranunculus (the one in front) out of the greenhouse. There are a few more hanging out on my newly painted plant shelf. Behind that is something called an orchid lily, which I am really excited to see bloom. My voice teacher and his wife gave me this from a division of theirs. Apparently, it blooms in an arch like an orchid, only the flowers are lilies! How cool is that?!

Ok, let's talk about the one on the top of the shelf....I knew that nasturtium were effective as natural "bug traps", but I was really unprepared for just how effective they really are....see how the leaves are mostly chewed off? None of the other plants have been touched....not even the tulip in the same pot!

This one's a baby. I decided it would probably be ok to go ahead and transplant some of the dill seedlings that were in the greenhouse. I may have to bring it inside later this week though...they were talking about frost on the news today.

I was starting to get a little worried about this rosemary plant. I had overwintered it and it was looking pretty anemic for a while, but it seems to be greening up nicely with some sunshine and warmer temperatures.

And lastly, the strawberry plant is starting to make berries!

Green Beans in the Ground

Ok, I know my average last frost date is technically not till April 15, and I may regret this later, but I just planted some of my green beans. I used a bush type (Blue Lake 274) so that I don't have to put up another trellis (I've already got one by the peas). This way, I can use the space inside the arc where the peas are planted efficiently.

As fast as beans grow, hopefully I'll have some bean sprouts soon!

With this consistently unseasonably warm weather, have you planted anything that you normally would wait to plant until later in the year?

Returning Hosta

I guess this goes to show how much I don't know about hosta.....the one I thought died I discovered magically growing again yesterday. It's twice as tall today as it was yesterday!

Oohhh....also, I have exactly one tomato and one basil sprout in the greenhouse! Hooray!!

Update: seed starting and ranunculus

It's a gorgeous day here for some gardening. It seems spring has officially begun, whether the calendar says so or not. I even spotted a few yellow butterflies flitting around the backyard.

After one more trip to Home Depot for more Jiffy Pots (we don't use enough tp to ONLY use the tube cups...I'll have to start saving them earlier next year!), I have got seeds started for each variety that needed an indoor start. My poor little green house is stuffed to capacity!!

Also, exciting news.....I have one teeny tiny ranunculus sprout!

I'm very excited. I bought a few tubers a while back knowing that they aren't really hardy in zone 6B, but hoping I could get them to grow in a greenhouse. I've had to clear out a few of the pots of ranunculus and relocate them to my windowsill while the food seeds are going, but I think I'll be able to put them back in there in a few weeks!

I also spotted a couple pea sprouts as I was walking around the garden.

And this friendly little bit of sunshine.

I'll take another picture when it opens up all the way.

About to Bloom

I'm pretty excited to report that I have a couple plants that are about to burst into bloom!

My daffodils are one.

Look at the big old bud on there! Looks like I'll have some sunny flowers in a few days.

Also, the blueberry is about to flower. The buds on this one are pretty tiny, but you can make out their pink-tipped buds if you look real close.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to make my camera take a true close up photo without getting blurry on me! Any suggestions??

I have some more seed starting to do today (some more tomatoes, dill and red-leaved perilla), along with a greenhouse cover to fix (the one storm casualty), I've put grommets on it, but need to redo some of the zip ties so it will close all the way.

Springtime Storms

The spring storm season has hit with a vengeance. We have had thunderstorms and tornadoes (a few people actually died in those) around Nashville this week and this morning, I woke up to dime sized hail! Yikes!!

 A little blurry, but I was shooting one handed! You can see how big the hail stones were though.

Fortunately, our cars were undamaged. I was worried about the plants and the greenhouse and those were also undamaged. Now we just have to make it through the next round of crazy weather that's supposed to hit this afternoon! I'm ready to grab the dog and hide in the bathtub if need be.

What do you do to protect your home and garden from severe weather?

More Composty Goodness and Some Planting

Another tub of compost showed up at my house on Saturday courtesy of my lovely friends who say they currently have WAY too much of it.

Not sure what I'm going to do with all of it yet (though I'm sure I'll find something!), but I put some of it to work as mulch around my baby blueberry. First though, I had to drag it up the hill to the back of the yard where the garden is. I've definitely had my exercise for the day!

In other news, I got my nasturtiums and peas planted! My next door neighbor stuck two tomato cages in the garden yesterday, so I decided to use those as a trellis for the peas to climb. I'll have to build another one that spans the end of the raised bed later, but for now, I feel like this is a good start.

My nasturtiums went in as a companion to the tulips I potted a few weeks ago, and also in a colorful coffee can I had saved to use as a container, and poked some drainage holes in. Maybe a little strange, but it works, right?

Sprouting Daffodils and other Bulbs

My grandmother and I used to plant daffodil, tulip and iris bulbs together when I was a little girl. Not sure how much help I really was since as a very young child, I would often plant the bulbs upside down and my grandmother would have to dig them up and replant them right side up (oops), but we always had a good time gardening together. Some of those same bulbs were blooming last year at my wedding, held at my grandparent's house in South Carolina (my mother now tends the garden there, now that both of my grandparents have passed). To this day, bulb flowers are some of my absolute favorites, so seeing my own daffodil, tulip and iris bulbs begin to grow this spring is very exciting.

One of the flower beds in front of the house is currently filled with bulbs that are beginning to grow. No flowers yet (though I have seen many blooming daffodils in my neighborhood), but the foliage is definitely coming along nicely. Here's some of what I've got so far...

I've even got a daffodil sprouting on the side of the house...

Is there anything growing or blooming in your garden?

Seeds have arrived!

My seeds arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon. I ordered from Park Seed Co. based in Greenville, SC (not too far from the family home). I find that it is less expensive than Burpee, and allows me to put some money into an economy that is, if not local to me in Nashville, is local to the economy that the rest of my family operates in.

Since it's raining and thunderstorming today, I think I will take the time to chart out exactly when I need to start the seeds for them to be ready for transplanting at the proper time.

Where do you order your seeds from? When do you start planting?

Garden To-do's

Seeing as how I'm supposed to have at least a few days of nice, not-freezing weather (in the 50's), I figure I ought to get outside and put myself to work! Here are my plans for the end of the week and weekend:

Weed this flower bed (Look at all those weeds...yikes! I definitely should have put down some mulch last year). Which leads me too....

Mulch the flower beds! If I'm going to go to all the work of weeding those beds, I think I can take some steps to keep the weeds at bay. What kind of mulch do you use for flower beds? Any particular material that plentiful around Nashville?

Remove last year's jalapeno bush. Remember me going on about how enormous it was? Here is a picture of what's left....probably should have pulled this up a while ago....oops.

Get a hoe and break up/turn over the dirt in the raised beds.

Get compost from my friends and mulch that into the veggie beds.

What are you doing to get your garden ready for spring?