Saturday, March 26, 2016

Spring is Here!

Although, it doesn't really look like it today, spring is here.  I woke up this morning to snow falling with the kind of intensity usually reserved for frigid January nights.  When it finally stopped, we had been blessed with about two inches of the wet stuff.

I've had about enough of that.

So instead of spending my day clearing the garage and puttering in the garden, I spent my day potting up some of this year's crop of bedding plants.  Seedlings, that is.  Green gold...

I've been in the house for TOO LONG.

Anyway, here are the highlights:

I went a little crazy with the cole crops this year.  I have two kind of brussels sprouts (Brawny and Purple), a Romanesco broccoli, broccoli raab, and baby choy.  I can't get a good pic of the choy, though.  Try as I might.

Romanesco broccoli

Brawny Sprouts

Another broccoli

Purple brussles sprouts
Then there are the peppers.  Thirteen kinds of peppers.  Here are a couple pepperocini types. 



Next come the tomatoes.  Only seven kinds, I think.  They're pretty small yet, but soon I'll be potting them up like the rest.

I haven't forgotten the herbs.  I planted two types of chives, some sage, thyme, basil, and corn mache.  It's my first try at corn mache. I don't even know what corn mache is, really.  But it was recommended to me by a very knowledgeable gardener.  So what the heck?

That's the basil with some leggy corn mache draped over it.  Swiss chard in the background.

So far, I think I'm off to a good start.  But none of this would be possible without the assistance of my able-bodied husband, his drill, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of zip ties.  Yesterday, he built the annex to the original seedling station.

It's just plastic, snap-together shelving, clip lights, and roughly a metric ton of zip ties.  A little bit of heaven in the living room.  Yep.  You read that right.


Yes, it seems like a lot of plants to me, too.  Perhaps come May 7 I'll see you down at the farmer's market and you can take a couple of peppers and tomatoes off my hands for a reasonable fee.

Now if the snow will just melt and let spring get underway, I'd be much obliged.