7 Quick Takes (the garden edition)

7 Quick Takes

~1~

We seem to have gone from winter straight into summer. Three weeks ago there was snow on the ground... last weekend the temperature was in the 90's. I wouldn't have minded a little spring...

~2~

The gardens are in... I've stolen my kitchen garden area back from Lili (the chicken), turned all my nicely fertilized dirt (thank you very much, Lili!), and planted a week ago or so. I have tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, onions, green beans, rhubarb and herbs in the kitchen garden. All the seeds are up except the lettuce... and I'm expecting to see the tiny new lettuce shoots any day now.

~3~

I just remembered the multicolored carrot seeds we planted in the kitchen garden last year. I think I have a few left... I'll have to find an empty corner and plant them too.

~4~

I've given the big garden area over to squash this year and totally redone it. It's all planted in pumpkins and cucumbers (I love homemade pickles!), and deeply mulched with grass clippings. I'm hoping the grass helps with the weeds... they ended up taking over last year, and I don't want a repeat this year. I've always had good luck using grass clipping as mulch in the kitchen garden... we'll see how they work on a LARGER area.

~5~

The cucumbers and pumpkins are both up and growing like crazy. If we can avoid the nasty hail storms we often get, it looks like we might end up with a bumper crop this year!

~6~

It look a long time to collect all the grass clippings I needed for the big garden. I ended up putting ads on Freecycle, asking for people's bags of grass, and then driving all over town (our little town, not Denver) picking them up. It took about 20 big bags of grass clipping... that's a lot of driving around in a town that tends to have small yards, and I am seriously tired of hauling and spreading grass clippings!

~7~

The flower beds are coming along too.  The perennials are up and looking good, and R planted some flowers (annuals) of her own this year and they are up, still very tiny... but growing well. We also planted sunflowers. They take up a lot of space, and sometimes get sort of "jungle-y" (as R says) but I think they are just the happiest flower, so I plant them every year. I also finally planted our tiny blue spruce trees outside. In about 100 years... if they live... they'll make a nice windbreak for the front yard. Since our little mini-orchard is complete (4 apple, 1 cherry, and 1 peach tree), I've started planting my little berry patch... just a few raspberries and black berries right now, but they'll spread. Yum.... I can't wait. :)