First sunny day in over a week

After a week or more (it sure felt like more) of rain and gray skies, I was super excited to get back into the garden today. I started off by heading to the nursery to pick up some plants.

I picked up this cute little succulent for my office, and I love the kitschy pot I got for it too. They also had bigger ones that resembled tea kettles.

I got most of the herbs all situated.  Pic on the left is Dill, Rosemary and Sage. There's either Parsley or Cilantro in there too (I forget). I am always disappointed with how strawberries do in the strawberry planter, so this year I decided it would be a fun to try herbs in it instead. Thyme, Tarragon, Vietnamese Cilantro and Curry Plant are in the middle pic. And on the right is my Oregano (which I repotted today) along with some Parsley, Chives and Cilantro which I started from seed.

Below are the beds. Left pic: Lettuce, Beets, Beans. Middle pic : Tomatoes (Early Girl, Brandywine & 2 Roma), Basil, Cubenelle peppers. Right pic: Cucumbers, Fairytale Eggplant, Ancho peppers, Jalapeno peppers, Parsley, some baby herbs.

                            

The hubs started to clear out an area as well. On the right you can see what he has done and on the left you can see the type of progress that he made. Stupid rocks are everywhere. I'm going to put the pumpkin, zucchini and leeks (I think) here.

The Shallot and Garlic seem to be doing well. I think they all got a good growth spurt with all that rain.

 

Below is the flower garden area. I picked up a butterfly bush to plant...we'll see how it does. I also found licorice plant--YAY! It's great cover and once it gets going, it's awesome. Low care, etc makes it even better. I also got these funky purple and white splattered flower...I think it's a type of verbena. I have to look again at the name of it. The salvia and delphiniums are coming back strong. I'm amazed how HUGE the lupine is again this year. I thought it was a biannual, so I wasn't expecting too much from it. Damn rabbits keep nibbling on it though. Grr. As you can see in the last pic, it's starting to get read to bloom. Woot. That's always a good sign. :)

 

Semi-Volunteer Cukes

At the end of last season, the sea of cucumber plants were dying back and there was one that had gotten kind of nasty as it was starting to rot. I left it because I kept meaning to go back and pick it up with something that wouldn't get the liquified cuke all over me. But, that never happened. In March, when the snow all melted, I finally picked up what remained--a papery shell filled with seeds.

This year, the cucumbers are going in a different bed so I thought, "What the heck, let's see if these seeds do anything." I roughly planted them in the new location, just tossing them into the bed, and covered them with soil. This past weekend, to my surprise, there are about 13 of these little cuke plants! I think they are Armenian Yard Long variety. At least I think that was what the cuke was that had been left behind. If it ever stops raining, I will need to divide them up a little. Whatever was digging around in the beds has spread the seeds around too much, and a few are coming up on top of each other.

There are also a couple cuke-looking plants coming up in the bed they were in last summer. I'm keeping an eye on those to see what they turn out to be...they might just be weeds, but they look a lot like cuke seedlings. If they are, I'm hoping they one of the other varieties. But, we shall see.

Tasty Links: Growing Tomatoes

How to plant tomatoes from seed.
Starting tomatoes from seed.
Should you prune out tomato suckers?
Tomato companion plants
Who knew you should plant tomato plants on their side?
Some good tips on transplanting plants grown from seed.
Martha Stewart's How to make a cold frame. Want to build one of these this year.

Things are blooming

The first daffs are almost ready to show
off their flowers

The forsythia has popped.
Yay for pretty flowers.