Lost

First for something happy:

When I took the greenhouse lid off my tomato/basil flat I lost the whole middle section of plants.  The light was too close/too hot:

But, I planted two more flats of stuff today and included more of the tomato plants I lost:

In the new flats I planted Vinca, Impatiens, Pink Poppy, Rudbekia, Mexican Hat, Tall Verbena, Chocolate Flower, Butterfly Flower, Agastache, Kelly's Snaps, Garlic Chives, Regular Chives, Cilantro, and Oregano, along with Yellow Pear Tomato, Red Pear Tomato, Red Siberian Tomato and Jalapenos.

Green

I should have taken the cover off for the picture.  These tomatoes are growing quickly!

These little lovelies showed their faces on Sunday.  I was so suprised that I gave out a little shout when I saw them:

The same flowers in the sun:

All around the yard things like this are popping up.  Started to show up last week:

 And, well, this is still pretty rediculous.  I haven't gotten to make the thing I need to because I'm afraid of the mitre saw.  But it WILL happen.  For now, my seed flat is under the light with some foil tented over again.  Very special:

It's March, Plant Your Seeds!

I've done a lame job with my posts on this blog.  Here's to doing better this year!

We planted a flat of tomato and basil seeds 2 days ago:

 Here's a little visual with the seed packets:

This is what we planted:

Tomatoes

   Amana Orange-we've had good luck with these in the past

   Cherokee Purple-another we've done in the past, a favorite of my parents'

   Yellow Pear-cherry tomato, this will be year 3 with these, a favorite of the kids, great for pasta dishes

   Red Pear-a variation of yellow pear

   Red Siberian-NEW to us this year, produces fruit a month earlier than the tomatoes we have traditionally used.

   Poblano Pepper-Ryan's request

Basil

   Minete

   Spicy Globe

   Siam Queen

   Purple

   Sweet

   Greek Yevani

I had a lot of success with a warmer last year so I'm using it again.  It's like a heating pad for your seed flat.  Once the seeds germinate I'll transfer the flat downstairs to my "silverhouse" (pics and explaination to come...when it's built).

It will be soooo much better than last year's contraption:

 Are you still trying to figure out what that is?

 Yes, that is two tv trays on top of each other along with various boxes to make the plants high enough to be by the florecent light.  You know I have skills.  There is also foil wrapped around and over the plants and light to keep it a little warmer and reflect the light.  It looks crazy but it did produce this:

Never fear, it will be way less getto this year.

Here's a little something to look forward to:

A day's pickin' from last season.  From the looks of the grass it was in September after the hotness of August killed it all.  Yes, Sept 14 to be exact.

Start of the 2011 Vegetable Garden Season

This afternoon I planted peas, onion sets, shallots, cauliflower plants and broccoli plants.

In the fall I had gathered the neighbor's leaves and covered the vegetable garden with them. Today I raked the leaves aside and dug to prep the soil. It was very wet and easy to turn. There were TONS of prize winning worms too! I just planted my stuff and covered everything back up with the leaves. The bottom layer of the leaves had broken down and has made a nice compost for the garden. Looking forward to things popping up!

I'm behind in my tomato and pepper seed starting. I'll be working on that this week too.

Tomato Harvest 2010

Our tomato harvest was plentiful. Every week or so we got about this much!

This was the last big harvest of the summer.

Zach's great pumpkin

In March of 2010 Zach planted pumpkins in random places around the yard. Mostly they ended up in my planters that surround our front porch. I let one plant live and it turned out to be the biggest punpkin we got!

Here is what the front yard looked like all summer with the magnificant pumkin growing out of the bricks.

And here is the pumpkin getting ready to become a pumpkin pie!

Summer Dinner

Over the summer I made this a lot. Tomatoes and zuccini from the garden were sauted with olive oil and basil from the garden. Then I mixed it all together with pasta. Mmmmm