This is the week! In Utah it's time to plant after Mothers Day, and the nurseries are full of veggies! I bought my tomatoes and peppers, and I am soooo excited! I got Brandywine, Beefsteak (always my favorite), Better Boy, Roma, Sweet Million Cherry, and Yellow Pear. I meant to buy Early girl, but somehow i ended up with Early Doll, which i have never heard of. I also got several hot peppers, jalapenos, Anaheim, and ancho. Last week I planted some carrots and green beans, Blue Lake variety. I should be swimming in veggies in a few months!

I also planted my dahlias today, both the new ones I ordered, and the ones I dug up last year and divided. Dahlias are definately my new favorite flower to grow, last year the bloomed prolifically and they are super easy to grow. talk about bang for your buck! My mom bought them for me last year and said, Trust Me, you will love them, and she was right. 

Too cute to eat! Yeah right...

Lettuce, Radishes, and Peas

Here's my baby lettuce!

And the radishes and peas! I don't think the peas are doing too well, we just haven't had enough sun this year. My brilliant plan was to plant the peas early enough so they were done by May 15th, so I could plant the tomatoes in that bed, because tomatoes do well in a bed that formally had peas or beans in it. Oh well! The best laid plans of mice and men...

Preparing my Last Vegetable Bed

I finally got a free day, so my husband and I set to work on the yard! He trimmed and mowed, and dug up two entire beds for me, one for flowers, one for veggies. This is my last vegetable bed. First we dug up all the grass and removed it, then I laid a medium bale of peat moss on it (which is enormous), and next I am going to dig in some manure. Also I am adding two bags of top soil to the lower end of the bed since it was so rocky. I don't know if you can see it, but I closed off the lower end of the bed, because last year I had a problem with water running out. Its so dry here I flood the beds twice a week to deep water the plants. Don't sprinkle the leaves with water, they like their leaves dry and their roots quenched!

Tulips!

What a cold spring we are having! The Tulip Festival opened this weekend, but the website says the weather isn't cooperating, and many of the tulips aren't opened yet. Sad! I guess they are extending the festival a weekend more to compensate. I know my tulips are getting ready, but most of them are still big green buds. 

My seedlings are doing alright, especially the sunflowers, which are monsters, and the cucumbers, so they should be ready for May's planting. I still need to prepare my last garden bed, I am lagging  behind, but its been a busy month here!

So apparently I need to apologize for not blogging for awhile! I have gotten some complaints! But the weather has been COLD and rainy, and I have been crabby! I want to go plant some more! Soon...

I will say my peas, lettuce, spinach, carrots and radishes are just coming up outside. They came up 1/2 inch or so, and seem frozen in place. Waiting for warmth no doubt!

The weatherman said its a La Nina year, which means wet wet wet. Ahhhh! I hope its not too bad, I am planning to plant a ton of tomatoes. My garden is on the south side of our house, so hopefully that will help it out. 

Baby Chickens! These are my friend Alisha's chicks, I am so jealous! They are darling! I just read that scientists at Pennsylvania State University found that eggs from pasture raised hens have 2 1/2 times more omega-3s and twice as much vitamin E as the eggs you buy at the store. I am gonna go find me some cage free eggs!

Did you know that ladybugs aren't necessarily ladies, and they aren't bugs?

Sure Signs Of Spring Despite Awful Weather

Sucess!

So far my Cilantro, Basil, and oregano have sprouted, and in spite of the dire warnings on the creeping thyme package, the also have sprouted!

Onions,Garlic,Spinach,Radishes,& Lettuce

 The weather has been amazing here in central Utah, and according to the charts its time to plant the cold crops. There are cold crops, like onions, garlic, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, that cannot tolerate heat well, and need to be planted in the cool weather. Other crops like tomatoes, squash, and peppers are warm weather crops, and need to be planted once the danger of frost is over, which is around the middle or end of May here. So this weekend my friend and I planted an absurd amount of onions, both red and yellow, in her backyard, and I put the remaining onions, and some garlic, in my yard. I also planted green onions from seed, spinach, two kinds of radishes, and some lettuce. Now I am a little worried about the lettuce, since I might be a few weeks early on that, so I am going to have to keep my eye on that to make sure it doesn't freeze. 
As a side note, when I planted the things from seed, I didnt plant rows, I planted whole 'squares' (rectangles really). Thats a tip from Mel the Square Foot Gardening guy. There is no room in a typical backyard garden for rows of veggies, and there is nothing wrong with seeding a 12"x12" area, or even bigger. Rows actually are a waste of space, and most plants adapt really well to the 'square foot' method. You should have seen how many tomatoes plants i crammed into a small area, and they grew enormous and produced a ton of fruit! Honestly, I put 1 beefsteak plant and 6 Romas in a 12" x 5' space! Sounds crazy but it works. More on that later.

Here is a link to a planting chart for Utah:
www.co.utah.ut.us/Dept/Exten/Data/​vegetableutah.pdf

Did you know that if you use any kind of insecticide on your plants you will kill all the earthworms in your soil? Try something else! I use a shallow pan of beer to attract and kill slugs (hey, they die happy!) and mild soap and water spray for bugs on the leaves. Other than that, I learn to share, a little food for the bugs, a lot of food for me!

Starting Seeds

Today I tried something I have never tried before, starting seeds inside several weeks before the last frost date. A packet of seeds costs around a dollar, and produces an absurd amount of plants, so I figured it was worth a shot. So in this picture you can see my little starter pots( i got them at the Dollar store, 10/$1), and filled them with 'starter mix'($4 from Kmart), not potting soil. I have read repeatedly that starter mix is better because seeds themselves contain all the nutrients they need for the first few weeks of their little lives, they dont need fertilizer or amendments. Cool, right? So in went the seeds, in the picture is cilantro, I barely covered them with soil, and put them in my warm front bay window. Seeds need to be around 70 degrees to germinate. You can even put them on top of the fridge until they sprout! And now we wait a few weeks and see what happens!

You know what the great thing about having a bad memory is? 

Life is full of surprises! Apparently I bought a ton of tulips last year and put them in the front! Why do I have no recollection of this?!! I remember the daffodils...

The Back Yard Gardener: March 8th

The Back Yard Gardener: March 8th: "This blog is about making something out of nothing. Unfortunately many of us are facing this reality in this economy. About a year ago we lo..."

The Back Yard Gardener: Soil

The Back Yard Gardener: Soil: "Dirt Dirt Dirt! The key to a great garden is simply dirt. Well maybe not simply... compost takes some work! So last year after I ripped out ..."

The Back Yard Gardener: Peas...'If they Ain't Snowed on Twice, They Ain't ...

The Back Yard Gardener: Peas...'If they Ain't Snowed on Twice, They Ain't ...: "So I always take advice where I can get it, in this case from a fellow gardener at work. According to him you can plant peas in the middle o..."

Peas...'If they Ain't Snowed on Twice, They Ain't no Good'

So I always take advice where I can get it, in this case from a fellow gardener at work. According to him you can plant peas in the middle of February in Utah! I looked it up on the local university's website, and its true! So since I had my beds all ready, in went the peas! Glad I did all that work in the fall. We'll see what happens!

Soil

Dirt Dirt Dirt! The key to a great garden is simply dirt. Well maybe not simply... compost takes some work! So last year after I ripped out all the old dead plants, I hand tilled my vegetable beds while adding aged manure and peat moss. I also created another 'square' for next years garden using some old rotting railroad ties that were in my yard. Then its just a waiting game, waiting for the rain and snow of winter to work on the soil...

As a side note, I also planted a bunch of bulbs, iris, daffodils, tulips, allium, laitris, and a few others, so hopefully I will have lots of surprises this spring! 

I also divided my daylilies, which I have never done before, so I will let you know how THAT goes!

March 8th

This blog is about making something out of nothing. Unfortunately many of us are facing this reality in this economy. About a year ago we lost our house. It sounds terrible I guess, but I made up my mind right away that no good could come from dwelling on what happened yesterday, and decided to make the most of what I had today. And what I had was a mobile home in the middle of town. That's right, a trailer! And I love my trailer, its convenient, it has a great layout... and a great yard! We live fairly close to a river, and this gives me great dark, rich soil, great for growing things!

So my goal this year, in between my working and volunteer work, is to grow as many vegetables and herbs as is humanly possible, and to have flowers that are the envy of the neighborhood! Follow me on this journey, and we will see what I come up with!