Neighbor Sherry Skewis has a gorgeous Japanese maple named Kelly, after her daughter. There was a seedling growing underneath, and she asked me to come get it, and grow it.
I think I have 3 or 4 of these seedlings growing in the greenhouse by now. Anyway, that'll be a beautiful tree.
I collected some acorns last fall.
Something has happened to them.
😲
Oak trees!
San Marzano into pots.
Planting lettuce starts indoors
Had too many lettuce starts; quite a few already planted outdoors. So I planted these in the indoor bed. We'll see how they do.
Listed them for sale Saturday evening. Friday morning had people lined up to buy them; well a few people lined up to buy them.
So them Saturday morning, turns out I sold them to friends from high school.
Sold them for $25 each; I'll bet we could have gotten $30 out of them in this year's market, but I'm content with what we got.
I had originally gotten 12, rather than the six that we needed, with the intention that I'd sell six to pay for the 12 and their first few months of supplies. And it worked perfectly. I love it when a plan comes together.
(These are the ones we kept.)
Admittedly, they are under a thermal cover, and pretty well protected, but they are Outdoors 3 weeks early.
Each one got about a cup worth of worms and worm castings from the worm bed, some 555 organic, and some vitamin B1 transplant solution.
Also up potted a fair number of peppers, both mini bell peppers and full size bell peppers.
First day watering the garden.
It's only been about four or five days since it last rained, but the garden is full of little bitty seedling plants with no roots. So I watered the garden.
Gave the baby chickens their first earthworms. They didn't know what to do with them.
Also planted a bunch of yellow dragon fruit seeds. Half of them in dirt half of them in wet paper towel. We'll see how they do.
Brought one batch of the baby girls outside. Their first time out ever.
They stayed huddled in a single mass for a while. After an hour, hour and a half, they began to explore a little bit. My lady gave them some shards of lettuce and of kale.
They're sort of indifferent. Sampling it a little here and there, sampling the grass here and there. It's like it's a whole new experience.
I refer to these girls as my chicken starts.
D. Petunias & Romaine
Put three dwarf petunia starts into a hanging pot. Transferred a dozen or two Romaine starts into a raised bed.
And an update on how the rhubarb is doing. I'm kind of impressed with the rhubarb too.
Planted out the Swiss chard.
Also cleaned out the chicken coop, and spread the used chips and sawdust into the yard for composting.
Planted tomatoes in the greenhouse bed.
One Cherokee Carbon, one Oxheart. So far. Also got a white tomasol into a large pot for the year.
Pretty cool accomplishment, in my own mind anyway. I harvested the last two Cherokee carbon tomatoes from the plants from last summer, pulled those plants up, fertilized the soil with worm castings and some 5-5-5, and planted new tomato plants. I was without tomato plants for all of an hour.
Boy is that delicious!
Replanted some obscure tomatoes. My lady likes the green ones. We've never tried the white ones. They are rumored to have a pretty mild flavor on them.
The word is that the potato sacks can go out three or four weeks before the last frost, which is about now. Put the Tater sacks out.
Planted the sprouted pea seeds today as well.
Had some pea starts growing indoors. Put them out. Previous peas had been eaten pretty badly. Don't know if it was slugs or birds. So I put down some slug bait, and covered them with mesh screen.
Finished the campfire ring
Fill the cracks in the top between bricks with liquid nails, then embedded a lot of sand into the liquid nails, so it looked the color of rocks. More or less.
Rearranging a number of shelves in the greenhouse, making room for more things to grow. More starts.
Had a couple of tools with busted handles. Replaced or fixed them. I replaced the handle on the shovel; just a length of dowel, and it seems to work fine, as long as I don't pry too hard.
The other is Nana's favorite tool, and I repaired the attachment, and filled all the cracks in her handle. It made her happy.
Four oak acorns sprouted in the fridge over winter. Into pots this morning.
Pansies from two sources: Ed Hume, and eBay. EBay seeds spent 2 months in the refrigerator.
Flower seeds from last year: Livingston daisies and Lobelia. I've never seen seeds as small as the Lobelia seeds.
Lettuce seeds from the sharing table at the pee patch. I didn't realize until I had planted them that they are very old. Bon Vivant dated 2013, Freckles dated 2009. Sigh.
I watched the sundew capture a gnat and start digesting it. Little bit gruesome, but pretty cool.
Also planted oregano.
Added another big old bin for the baby chicks. 12 in one big black bin is too many.
So now we have six in a big black bin. Twice.
Planted lettuce out in the garden today.
Sprayed the apple trees today.
Added a warm coat over the second bed; tomatoes are going to go here eventually.
Up potted the seedling cucumbers. Slicing cucumbers and Martini cucumbers, which are also slicing cucumbers. Comment: Martini is yellow, and the skin is real thin. And it tastes good.
Up potted White Currants.
Up potted San Marzano, assorted peppers.
Planted carrots radishes and turnips out in the garden.
This morning, I repotted The Dahlia tubers from last year's dwarf dahlias. Sprouts on two or three of the tubers; we'll see what actually grows. Do you have some more seeds in soil this year in order to keep the flower population up.
Also resealed The Joint between the greenhouse roof and the greenhouse walls. It appears that rodents like to pull out the styrofoam Stoppers. So I duct taped them all in.
Planted some hollyhock and calendula.
Also fresh water on all of the avocado starts.
Set out a few peas and one chard.
Replanted habanero, ghost pepper, bell pepper from the grocery store, and California Wonder Bell pepper.
Planted some nasturtiums, some marigolds. Replanted some Razzmatazz sunflowers. Marigolds, dwarf dahlias
Cantaloupe is sticking its nose above ground. Also some lemon cucumbers, some yellow pear tomatoes, and some dwarf petunias.
My sweetheart brought me a gift yesterday: A Cape Sundew. a carnivorous plant, a tropical plant It needs nine hours of direct sunlight or so daily, needs to be in water pretty much all the time, and it each little bugs and aphids that tend to infest a greenhouse.
I'm a little bit cautious, because it wants to be between 65° and 100°, and that's a little sketchy here in the northwest. It's on the corner of the heating pad right now.
Up potted Scotch bonnet and Mad Hatter peppers.
Moved all the 6-in pots to the window sills, and reserved the trays Under The Lights against the garage for new ones.
Replanted ghost peppers and red habaneros. Ghost pepper seeds were 2022. Red habanero seeds were from 2020, so I added some 2022 orange habanero seeds there.
Planted some pumpkins and squashes.
It's raining tonight. So I fixed up the Drain from the downspout.Temporarily, at least.
Too often, rain produces standing water on the greenhouse floor.
Rosemary cuttings, bell pepper starts.
First Lawn Mowing of Spring; Chickens got the clippings.
Finally found some baby chicks. Chicken starts. We're now raising six Calico Princesses, and six Americaunas.
Plan is to sell the extras, when they're ready. Probably July or August.
Found some hollyhock growing in the greenhouse.
Pretty. Seeds came from a walk, I think.
These ended up in the ground by my mother's back porch. h. She has fond memories of hollyhock.
Put up nets over the last two Garden beds, the ones with fresh seeds. Was going to get some more starts going, but ran out of time.
