Friday's Coffee & Garden Update is back on!

I've missed coffee & my garden log for a few weeks.
Wanna know why?

It seems like someone is constantly needing something. Diapers, juice, cheerios, breastfeeding every 2 hours during the day, a nose wiped, conflict resolved, more diapers, lunch, books read, accidents cleaned up, laundry washed, shoes on, shoes off, diapers changed, more feeding, oops I forgot to feed the big kid supper, crying and crying and crying... Did I mention diapers? OK, so I guess you get the drift...

Yes, I took a picture of it.

I don't really even have time to be doing this now, but I really want to do a garden log entry, because I'm behind on that, too. I need to for my own records if nothing else. So here I sit doing it anyway. I'm just not going to be able to show you all the pictures that I'd like to.

Here's the garden view as I can see it from my rocking chair... where I spend most of my time, it seems, nursing the baby:

You can't see everything in the photo, but the more I work out there, the more it begins to look like a real garden. It's very exciting! And yes, I do get about 5 minutes at a time during the day to go out & work. Then I take David & Elizabeth with me out to the garden every evening that we can get Rebekah to sleep early. That doesn't happen every night, though.

Just a few of the highlights... The potatoes are growing so fast I can hardly keep up with covering them! The cage on the right (the red seed potatoes) is growing much faster than the other (organic potatoes from the store).

The raised bed in the foreground still has onions trying to make something of themselves, 2 tomatillo plants (replaced after the freeze), and pepper plants. I lost all of my jalapeno plants in the great raccoon raids of 2009, so I had to replace them also. Still hoping my pepper seedlings that I have left will kick into gear and become plants large enough to produce. They're incredibly slow growing and still measure just a few inches tall.

The raised bed in the background has tomato plants that seem to be doing well... after I had to replace all but one of them. My lovely heirlooms - all but one froze. They've been replaced by Roma, Sweet 100 Cherry, Celebrity, Yellow Pear. I still have 2 tomato plants in the "nursery" recovering from the raccoon attack.

I'm trying a cattle panel support system for the tomatoes, as described in last month's Texas Gardener magazine. I love that magazine. I've also got an arch made out of cattle panels coming off the other side of raised bed 2 and hope these Lazy Housewife pole beans will fill it in! Another first time to plant for me - pole beans.

David and Elizabeth already enjoy playing under the arch. I think they'll enjoy it even more as the vines fill in.

Not pictured, we also have Butternut and Spaghetti Squash sprouting, burpless cucumbers and sunflowers. The horseradish has really taken off since the little sprout I showed a few weeks ago

and the Rainbow Swiss chard looks ready to me. I love the beautiful colors.

I have been enjoying salads and sandwiches with fresh lettuce for about 2 weeks now. Hopefully I'll have enough to take a small bunch of lettuce to the Mother's Day cookout at Grana's. I wonder how the chard would be on hamburgers?

Not much blooming now... that will be resolved in future years. I need blooming plants around me. Last week the petunias looked pretty good.

This week, my one remaining rose is blooming.

I planted some zinnia seeds that a neighbor shared with us & they've started sprouting, so we'll have some blooms later in the summer at least.

Spring, Coffee, Seeds

Let's see how many things I can cover in one post! HA!

First, welcome on in, Company Girls! The kettle is whistling... I've got instant decaff with Splenda and Half & Half so the baby won't freak out.

Next I'll do my garden log and review for The Growing Challenge: From Seed to Seed.

And this week's You Capture photo challenge is Spring. I thought my garden log would provide some appropriate photos for the challenge. It was fun thinking of both of these challenges as I photographed my plants this week!

We had the open house last Saturday, along with a baby shower! Everything went wonderfully. We enjoyed sharing the day with friends, family, and neighbors, and were showered with wonderful gifts for the coming baby. I posted a Virtual Open House and baby shower.

We had a frost last weekend. : ( I did cover my tomatoes, but it was so windy that the cover of Raised Bed #1 blew off. The Roma, which had suffered some stem damage from an insect earlier this week looked like a goner. The Mariglobe tomatoes got frostbite. The tomatillos' & onions' stems were broken by the flapping cover. I cried. Raised Bed #2 was fine.

The next night, another frost. Dad put out the covers for me because I wasn't feeling well. The tomatoes (Roma & Mariglobe) & tomatillos in Bed 1 appear to be gone. Also covered, Raised Bed #2 got frostbite as well. Both Wild Cherry tomatoes look completely dead. The Mortgage Lifter lost some leaves, but I think it will be ok. I still can't tell about the Yellow Pear (that's it in the photo).

Meanwhile, 3 yellow tomatoes planted in troughs at the back of the house were fine, uncovered. Those are the ones I got for free. Go figure. I think the house blocking the north wind helped.

Other bad news - the peppers that were transplanted into the garden? Too early. This truly is a learning experience! Luckily I had a lot of pepper seedlings. Here are some of the ones that are left:
I thought their leaves were having some kind of problem, but it turns out that those first leaves that appeared when they first sprout are starting to fall off, just leaving the true leaves behind. That makes the plants suddenly look smaller again! This one below is a firecracker pepper, which will be a pretty plant, so I put it in a pretty pot.

And of all the seeds that I had great success germinating, I'm having more trouble keeping them alive & transplanting them. I have moments of thinking, "Next year, I'm just buying plants," followed a little later by feelings of "I can do this!" Dad has a greenhouse that's not put together right now & even he mentioned using part of it for vegetable starting in the future. Maybe that would help. I think part of my problem now is that they dry out so fast on the porch with the wind we've been having.

And now, something has been digging little holes into the dirt in my pots (seedlings and larger pots!) on the porch at night!!!! Apparently this cat is not doing his job defending my plants at night! It's not him, because his paws would leave a bigger hole. Could it be a mouse? or some type of insect?

Now, some better garden news...

The carrot seeds that I replanted after David dug them up the first time are sprouting. I have no idea when I need to thin them. I don't think we'll be getting a lot of carrots out of this one pot, but it's still fun to see them grow. Elizabeth loves carrots, too. We'll enjoy whatever we get.

The lettuce garden on the back porch is still growing well. All the seeds came up around the edges of the pots. I wonder if maybe the seeds floated to the sides when I watered them in? I ate one of the tiny leaves Thursday evening. It was good!

A couple of bunches of Swiss Chard are still looking good. They've enjoyed the recent rain.

That's all the seeds. The potatoes also got frostbite last weekend, but they look like they'll come back. Onions are still growing well in the raised beds & troughs. I was tempted to pull one of Grandpa's the other day...

Dad will be excited to see this one (he's been at work) - the horseradish root I planted for him has sprouted!


Now on to the flowers! We don't really have much blooming this week. But we were given this beautiful geranium at the open house by one of our neighbors. The color is amazing and the plant is huge! This photo has not been edited at all!

I had purchased a 6-pack of petunias a few weeks ago & put those in little pots on the front porch to welcome our guests. I lucked out with a pack that was all different colors. (perhaps you've noticed I like things colorful around here) We had white, bright pink, red, deep purple, pale pink and one hasn't bloomed yet.

I think this is a claret cup cactus that we moved here with us from West Texas. The blooms were just starting to open.


I can't remember which post she commented on, but my bloggy friend Heather @ Not a DIY Life asked if the kids garden with me. (Her Ladybug is a few months younger than my Ladybug.) They love being outside with me and I do have some kids gardening tools.

David has a kid-size hoe and I've taught him that we want grass in the back yard, but not in the garden... and that we want sunflowers in the garden but not in the back yard! So far, he's done pretty good attacking the right thing in the right place. And when I say "attacking" that's really what it looks like. We've worked on controlling the hoe to actually hoe a weed, but when left on his own, he just attacks the plant (or the ground), leaves it maimed, and moves on to the next one.

I do most of my potting on the back porch. I have a big flat bucket thing that I set pots in while I'm working & it contains the potting soil mess. Elizabeth has a little hand rake and likes to scrape in the dirt in my work area. She also likes to fill little pots with dirt, pour it out, and do it again.

I use a watering can to water my seedlings & pots and MawMaw gave Elizabeth a little watering can at our first baby shower, so she also enjoys watering things. I don't want her watering the seedlings, so I usually ask her to water the flowers. She gets so proud that she's able to help, proclaiming, "I helpin'! I water flowers!"

As I forked some hay/compost into my potato cages this week, Elizabeth also threw in handfuls of dirt. I usually don't mind most of their help as long as they're not adding rocks or moving rocks from where I want them. We have a big pile of dirt that usually gets their attention that they dig & play in, also.

As they get older and continue to be outside with me and Dad, I'm sure teaching them about the plants and how to take care of them will just come naturally. It's all a learning opportunity. David understands about compost, recycling and how earth worms help the soil. And of course, they know that ladybugs are the good guys, so don't squeeze them! Dad is also looking forward to the day when David will be old enough to teach about lawn mowing!

Coffee & Seeds

Sun rising on the Texas Mountain Laurel

After yesterday's emotionally tiring day, I thought about skipping coffee this morning, but finally decided to serve it up anyway. Plus, I have some things I need to add to my garden log. And I really wanted to go outside and photograph those blooms!

Read more about the Growing Challenge: From Seed to Seed at One Green Generation.

Tuesday, March 17 - I finally cut up the pumpkins we had from last fall & took the seeds out. I don't know if they're hybridized or not, or if the seeds are still any good. We were surprised when we cut into the big one to find that the seeds were sprouting inside the pumpkin! I tried putting those sprouts into some little pots. We'll see if they do anything.

Oh, remember that David planted some carrot seeds last week? Well, he forgot he planted them & dug in that pot. So I planted some more.

I also planted my hollyhock seedlings and rocket larkspur seeds along one of the fences out front (above). Once those get big enough to bloom, they should provide some pretty photos for us!

Wednesday, March 18 - After leaving my plants on the back porch for a couple of days, I finally decided to start planting them in the ground! Into Raised Bed #1, I planted the Rio Granda Roma Tomato,

2 - Mariglobe Tomatoes,

2 - Toma Verde Tomatillos, 2 - California Wonder Bell Peppers, and 3 - Sunbright Peppers. Then sprinkled everything with some DT, because I saw an awful lot of pillbugs in there. I'm afraid my pepper seedlings may have been to small still. They're having quite the struggle. I did not plant all of them, so if these don't make it I have more. The more I deal with pepper seeds & seedlings, the more I realize they need more codling than a lot of other plants!

I had a Jalapeno that was going outside, too, but David accidentally pulled it up. I re-planted it back in it's little pot & will give it more time to recover from that!

But the potatoes are not so particular!

Can anyone tell me at what point I need to start mounding up over this plant to cover it up???

Potato Cage #2 has started sprouting as well!

The lettuce is still sprouting sporadically.

And the swiss chard shot up after the rains last week. It actually looks like teeny tiny little swiss chard now!

Onions appear to be doing well. I think this dirt would benefit from some mulch, though. It's gonna crack pretty quickly. I've got onions scattered all over the place - some in raised bed #1, these are in the trough with the Mountain Laurel, some are in with the iris, some in another trough.

Now on to the flowers! I am so proud of the Texas Mountain Laurel that was the first photo of today's post! Dad grew that from seed that we collected in the Texas Hill Country. These are very hard to grow from seed. He's been raising it in a pot for several years now. Last year it had one small bloom cluster on it. This year, it's in it's permanent home by our back porch and has about 8-10 bloom clusters on it! Standing nearby, you can whiff it's intoxicatingly sweet fragrance. Such an amazing plant! I should really take another picture of it in the evening light.

The pansies from last fall are blooming again.

And I just went blank... : \ but isn't it pretty?

Grape hyacinths bloomed all week. Cannas are pushing up.


And the Phoebe nest looks about finished. I saw one of them catch a flying insect on the back porch this week. Go for it, birdie!

Updated to add: This morning I added some old hay to mulch raised bed #1, the giant potato, and the hollyhock seedlings. I hope maybe the shade from the hay & slight wind protection on those smallest seedlings will help, especially with the peppers.

Updated again to add: This afternoon I planted the Wild Cherry Tomatoes, Mortgage Lifter Tomato, and Yellow Pear Tomato into raised bed #2 and mulched around each with the old hay.