Monday morning my little family went out and planted our vegetable garden. This might be the earliest I have ever planted my vegetables. Out in the community garden, many participants were getting their plants in. It was great motivation to work on my garden as well. I waited past one cold storm and then went for it. I’m glad I did with all the rain we’ve been having. I don’t have to worry about watering.

Most everything was planted through black plastic. On one garden, I had soaker hoses underneath (the other is stuck with lawn sprinklers). I love using this method: less wedding and higher yields in my experience.

All the transplants I planted I grew myself.  I was pleased with the results. They were better than some box store ones I’ve seen, but not as good as transplants from a good grower. I learned a lot from doing it as well.

One problem I had was forgetting to fertilize. I had used some slow release on the early tomatoes I seeded, but then forgot to fertilizer that other plants until their leaves were yellow. After some liquid fertilizer they did a lot better, but there was irreversible damage. When I worked at the greenhouse, we would fertigate about twice a week. It’s pretty easy to do that with a watering can and liquid fertilizer at home, if you remember. The slow release granulars also worked well when I put it on not too long after germination.

Next time, I think I will use two rows of florescent lights over a single shelf. The ones on the out edges were a lot smaller than the ones right under the light. When the weather warmed up, I just put them outside and forgot the less than ideal light situation.

I ended up with a lot of transplants. I over-planted them in the garden a bit (I do not need two zucchini plants), but still have more.  If you where a little less gung-ho than I was, by growing transplants at home you could do exactly what you wanted. Sometimes that’s impossible with store bought ones because they are often sold in four packs. But the good thing about over planting is they are fun to give away. By the way, if you live close I have extra pepper, tomatoes, and eggplant transplants I’m giving away.

The garden is in, the rain has come and I’m taking a break from gardening. But only until it stops raining, and then I can rectify the patchy spray job I did on the grass out front.

I planted tomatoes!!!! It was a very joyful experience. If you live around here you may be wondering: temperatures at night are still occasionally dipping below freezing. Tomatoes will freeze out in the garden and it’s not time to plant for at least another three weeks. But that’s if you are not being tricky. I used a common “trick” that enabled me to plant around four week early.

I grew my own transplants this year, and had several Roma plants ready for planting. I knew I seeded them a little early, but I was planning on doing some season extension. I used what are generally referred to as walls of water. It forms a mini-greenhouse around the plant and keeps them very well insulated from cold temperatures. They have been planted for a few days, and there’s no sign of any cold injury. (Of course, temperatures for those days haven’t gotten below freezing either, so the real test is yet to come.)

To plant them out, I first put down a layer of black plastic to warm the soil. Ideally, this should have been done several days before planting. (I just did it right before I planted, and so far it seems okay.) I cut holes in the black plastic and planted my tomato plants. I took off the bottom couple of leaves and buried the stem. (Very useful on the slightly leggy transplants.) The walls of water are filled with (surprise) water. I actually filled them with warm water: you could also leave them outside for a few days before planting. It should help in creating the warm conditions I want faster.

Now I can’t wait until my first harvest! Most of my seedlings are also coming up in the garden: the radish were first followed by lettuce and now peas. We planted leeks last week, and I’m planning on doing potatoes and onions this week. Great time of year right now.

I planted a couple of rows of beets out in the garden, and decided everything else could use a drink. It’s time for all the cool season crops to get planted. I planted a lot of mine a couple weeks ago, and the first seedling to pop up are the radishes. My coral bells have lots of new growth, and I planted some Asclepias to start filling out my rear flower bed.

Flowering plants I’ve seen right now include Dicentra, flowering cherries, Callery Pear, flowering quince, Mahonia, currant, the mid-season tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and some quite pretty phlox. It’s a wonderful time of year to see everything start to green up. The flowering quince are particularly lovely: but come summer they almost always get iron chlorosis. It’s a great time to add chelated iron or elemental sulfur so they don’t. (As a side  note–other susceptible plants are berries, red and silver maples, and spireas. I saw some silver maples completely yellow in the summer. It was actually very pretty, but then the plant starts to die.)

I need to start mowing regularly this week. It’s been not too bad, but the grass is starting to get too long.  I put in a picture of a lawn overran with clover. I would actually seed clover and wild violets into a lawn. Most people think of them as weeds, but to me they just enhance the grass. I love to pick the wild violets and enjoy the subtle, sweet flower scent. There’s lots of projects I’d like to start on in the landscape–but I think I’ll hold off for a week because my husband has finals right now. Still working on basic spring clean-up, picking up old leaves and branches from the winter.

Plus I’ve got several design projects going on. Design is a lot of fun though, and perfect to do during nap time.

Previous to now (even in the winter), I try to go hiking once a week. But lately I just haven’t made it up into the mountains. Yesterday I went on a bike ride that started up a canyon and went down into the city.  Up in the canyon is a lot of dormant plants, mud, and even snow. Down in the valley the cherries and apircots are starting to bloom, along with forsythias, currants,  mahonia and bulbs. All the new spring leaves are making there first appearance, and the lawn is green and growing. I’ve also been busy working on starting my garden up this year, along with starting the maintenance for the landscape and several landscape designs.

So why am I not out hiking? I’m busy with garden tasks and besides that, it’s prettier here. I’ll go after my tomatoes are in and the weather starts to heat up more, demanding a break for the cool mountain air. Right now, I’m enjoying mowing lawns, adding compost, planting spring crops, and cleaning up the outside. Everything is still exciting after the long winter break. Gardening easily puts all other recreational tasks on hold, and I’m okay with that.

Also, today I transplanted my tomato seedling right when I should have. They weren’t huge like all the previous ones I’ve done. I also decided in future years to go ahead and double my lights. The plants are doing okay with just one light above them, but a little leggier than I would like them.

I had  a lot to do outside, but it was wet today. So my transplants inside got some desperately needed attention. (Except the few that were pulled up by little toddler.) Rainy, lazy days are nice.

The weather was pretty great this week. Tons of fun garden activities.  It was a lot more fun with a borrowed old pick-up that my toddler loved. He got to be in the front (air-bag off of course), and thought it was the best thing in the world. I seeded my tomatoes and some coleus early in the week, tried to go easy on the number I was planting. Still, with 5+ varieties of tomatoes for 3 of us, I’m thinking I’ll just have too many. Good think I have lots of friends to share them with.

The community garden is coming along nicely.

My garden plot--planted.

The garden plot got a big layer of compost. I hoed the compost in a little, but mostly left it to decay in by itself. I’m thinking less tilling will do fine, if not preserve some soil structure and it is a lot less work. It’s an experemient: we’ll see how it does sans tilling. Yesterday the temperatures was in the 70’s, and I planted my cool season crops: peas, lettuce, chard, kohlrabi and radishes. Then this morning I woke up to this:

April Fool's joke, just two days late.

What?….I guess it is spring, and here it means occasional snow. I didn’t expect the sky to open up and drop a foot down though. (It seemed a lot like the comics where it falls all down in seconds. Go to bed it’s rainy, but still warm, wake up and kazzaam: snow.) Lots of branch breakage from the heavy snow as well, which is more work for me.

Other tasks I was up to this week included buying a lawnmower and a lot of other yard equipment. Small stores are nicer than big department stores. I bought a mower at a big box store, and they helped me put the box in my truck. I was left to do everything else. I bought a weedwhacker at a small, independent store. They made sure it was the right model for me (I love it), gassed it up and made sure it was working properly and that I knew how to use it.

I also hired out for a pruning job. The trees were old and in need of much love–here is some before/after pictures of the apple trees.

They aren’t done yet, but it’s enough for one year. May I say, never let your trees get this bad. Prune them when your don’t need a chainsaw, just a basic pair of loppers. I also bought a new pair of loppers and I adore them. Very ergonimc: I could slice through branches that I probably should use a saw on. I love the telescopic handles on the larger trees I was doing as well. The only bad part was how wide they needed to open in order to cut bigger branches–but it was worth the effort it saved.

After a snowy, yucky day Friday, I was surprised to find the soil was actually workable yesterday. Maybe a little on the wet side, but not saturated or soggy. There is no longer sod covering my future garden plot. It still needs lots of work–tree roots (never put a garden plot next to a tree), asphalt chunks, and rocks still need removal. I also want to add a good layer of compost. But I should be able to plant peas extremly soon.

Community gardens are fun. Yesterday there was a group of us working together, which always makes work more enjoyable. I have to say my husband is a great worker, and he’s the reason we no longer have sod. We just did it by hand because it was only a 10 x 10 area. I think some people are giving up and renting a sod cutter though.

The forsythias are starting to come out. That seems to be the trigger for a slew of spring gardening activities, like putting down pre-emergent. I don’t have to do that, but I do need to start pruning the overgrown roses. Walking by them yesterday, I noticed the buds were swollen, with leaves starting to push out.

I also finally finished up a list of local garden center, available here if you are interested.

It is about time to get my peas and other early cool season crops in. But I’m not there yet. Today I sat down and started planning. Reading blogs has actually made me a more ambitious gardener. It also might be that I’m out of school, and have a desire to stay completely involved with horticulture. I also have plenty of opportunity this year. Whatever it is, I have plans for the largest vegetable garden I have ever grown, with the most varieties of plants.

I talked to a couple of grandparents in my neighborhood who are offering half their garden to me. I’m starting to enjoy this couple: they remind me of my own grandparents and are very active for being in their 80’s. The garden plot adds another 400 sq feet to my existing 200 sq feet on the condo grounds. I’m starting to realize I could plant even more. Maybe I’ll start a farm someday, but for now the “lack” of space is good. I’m going to be plenty busy with the vegetable gardens, condo landscape, and other landscapes projects that come my way. But busy in a very, very good way.

Lots of good plants this year: leeks are my complete trial crop that I have no experience with growing or cooking. I’ve got the standard tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucs and whatever else seeds I have left over from past year.  I do want to get a crop of cool season vegetables. It’s difficult here because it tends to get hot quickly, and the soil takes a while to be workable (or at least workable at my convince). I started to dig around and found out the condo plot is a small layer of topsoil over gravel. I think it will be workable, with a good layer of compost. There was also a spot of topsoil over asphalt. It amazes me that lawn can grow with such shallow soil. Up at USU, they have a huge exercise field they planted over an old parking lot, without removing the parking lot. It does save on money during installation, but my guess is there might be trouble down the road.

And by the way, I need to buy a lawn mower. Any suggestions? I have about an acre of lawn, plenty of obstacles, no hills.