Garden Fuss

Happy Friday it is so cold today after a long beautiful week in the 50's and above. It's time for a little comfort food while I contemplate what seeds to start next.

So I made a trip to mother earth garden center to get the grow pellets for the tomatoes and they already had tomato plants thriving on their in-door display shelf/nursery. I was going to wait until next week to start but became so encouraged by what I witnessed I had to start right away. We will be starting some tomatoes in the pellets and some in the organic potting mix tonight. As with the other plants we grow we will keep you well informed of our status. The types we are starting today are: Black Krim (heirloom) Old German (heirloom) Speckled Roma (heirloom paste) Beefsteak (heirloom sandwich tomato) Chocolate Cherry Large Red Cherry Ground Cherry (physallis or husk tomato for jams and jellies)

Today I have started the task of killing.... I mean thinning all the viable seedlings that have just overcrowded their small pots. I enlisted the help of the hubby and I think it was harder on him than it was for me. Many gardeners beginning or otherwise feel a little like they're choosing one child over the other (which you are kind of ) and it's a little disturbing at first. However, I tried to put it in perspective for the hubby by citing what happens in nature and that it's called "survival of the fittest". As you can see from the photo we have two purple cauliflower in one container. One of these has to be cut down with scissors at soil level to just one plant or transplanted to it's own pot to become the fittest.  One strong plant in it's own pot can develop fruit or flowers later on and won't have to compete for nutrients with several other plants. Also, plants that are crowded in pots don't get enough air circulating around them or water an

It's so gloomy today that I needed something comforting that would fill me up knock off the chill and remind me of the great green things to come. Since I'm trying to watch my waistline too this recipe hit the spot.

Creating the infrastructure for and expanding the beauty of our garden was the first goal I had for the growing season. Towards the middle of spring I started to focus on the little helpers seen and unseen that helped our garden flourish. Those little helpers or Beneficial Insects as they're known in the gardening/scientific world included my top three which are bees, lady bugs, and praying mantis. We loved watching the mantis hatchlings scurry around their little make shift nest we hung around the window sill. I will write more about lady bugs and praying mantis in future posts but today I want to focus on the cute little fuzzy guys that lift an astounding amount of weight on such tiny little wings... Bees .  The first thing I decided to do when researching how to attract bees was to find out what kinds I could attract in my area which is Zone 4. I thought I would have the time to make a home to attract mason bees but ran out of the time and the drill I needed to make a cute li

Lunch today is something new!!! YUMMY YUMMY to my tummy.

We have comprised the list of seeds we will be starting for the 2010 grow season. Yes there are technically some fruits listed in the vegetable section, but we wanted to make the list a little more easy to decipher and less intimidating for beginning gardeners. SEED LIST 2010 Vegetables Climbing Spinach Egg Plant - Black Beauty Cabbage - Ferry's Round Dutch Purple Cauliflower Brussels Sprouts - Long Island Pumpkin - Jarradale Squash - Spaghetti, Saffron, Dark Green Zuchinni, Burpees Hybrid Zuchinni Peas - Dwarf Grey Sugar, Super Snappy, Super Snap, Sugar Daddy, Pink Eye Purple Hull Beans - Royal Burgundy, Tenderpick, Disoy Beets - Ruby Queen, Detroit Dark Red, Chioggia, Burpee's Golden Carrots - Kaleidoscope Mix (salmon-orange, yellow & white) Lettuce - Grand Rapids Leaf,  Mesclun Mix Leeks Okra Celery - Giant Pascal Peppers - Jalapeno, Cubanelle, Grand Bell Mix Tomato's - Beef Steak, Speckled Roma, Large Red Cherry, Old German, Black Krim, Choc.C