More Rain, Some Heat, Then MORE Rain!

I took pictures last week with every intention of posting my weekly update and time just completely got away from me! WELL! The past 2 weeks have been all across the board weather wise - from crazy rains to 100 degrees to mid 50s... A little bit of everything for everyone I guess! My garden has taken off like gang busters. Well... most of them have...


Above is the north side of the garden. From foreground to back are cabbage, onion, kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and peas. The cauliflower are still just barely hanging on, but they are making a good effort at least.

Above is a detail of the zucchini buds that are just starting to peep out along the bottom layer of leaves. Looks very promising!!

Tomato's are blooming like crazy too!

And the radishes have gone wild! They have bud stalks starting to flower as well and this flurry of flowers makes me happy! Means a promise of a good harvest! Woohoo!

Ooo... This Much Rain Is NOT So Good!

Last week was quite rainy... but it's turned out to be nothing compared to this week! Rain rain and more rain!! While my zucchini's are shouting "bring it on!! WOO!!" my peppers are whimpering and withering... not to mention my columbines that have all but turned yellow/brown from being so waterlogged. My potted plants are just not feeling so hot. I keep bailing the water out and dumping them over, but yeah, no such luck. Drainage holes? What are those again? Oops...

I had moved my delphinum and snapdragon seedlings outside to harden them off before being transplanted to the front flowerbeds. I've pulled them back inside to let them dry out a little bit. The snapdragons are flurishing in the wet... I think I even heard them giggling! But the delphinium... Oh dear thats another story. The poor things have all but drowned out at this point. They really had such a hard time sprouting, then growing, and now this... Mental note for next year: Let someone else grow delphinium from seed. That or I should just sow them straight into the soil. Hmm... I've got some extra seed, maybe that's what I will do this year too. Can't hurt, right?

Progress!

Jman has actually made it out to the house and has started scraping old paint! This brings be great joy! I also now know that is has to be completed by June 1st as this is when the city inspector will be coming by. YAY! He's already purchased the siding color and he says it seems "awfully dark..." I really hope he got the correct color... I'll take some pictures when I get home of his scraping progress. Apparently we are going to potentially be getting a couple new windows too (fingers crossed on that one). Jman "has a guy" and I've told him about the rediculously amazing quote I got from UM, and he was pretty blown away by how cheap it was for really good quality Pella windows. But who knows. He said he wasn't sure how he was going to be able to pay for them...

I was even thinking of applying for another Home Depot card (ha) just to see if we could get windows from them on a payment plan.

A Comparison...

These pics were taken from roughly the same spot and I can't get over the difference! And thats after only 7 days and almost no sun! I can't wait to see what next weeks comparison looks like!

A Week of RAIN!

A week of very little/no sun and a whole lotta rain did wonders in my little veggie garden! Everything has officially sprouted! And most are getting their secondary leaves in too! I think a nice dose of sunshine over the weekend with be just what the little plants needs to help boost them to bigger plants! I'm thinking of transplanting my peppers this weekend too. I have 5 pepper plants that will be put down in the same row as the tomatoes.

Here's a quick look at the veggies I posted last Friday, and what they looked like this morning!

Zucchini:

Squash:

Peas:

Cucumber:

Yes indeed they have been doing quite well with cold and wet! So now that it is going to heat up a bit, they can really get cracking! Once I see secondary leaves on everybody, I'll put some preen mulch down. As it was so wet all week I didn't do squat for weeding... and they are kinda getting unruly in there... Darn weeds.

The transplanted garden looks so much better! The bleeding hearts are bouncing back like gangbusters, the fox glove are starting to die back a bit now that the first big bloom stalk is pretty much spent. The hosta's that were slumbering have now opened and are HUGE!! Not to mention my viola's LOVING the soil they are in as every single plant is blooming like crazy (thats what the purple halo is down below under the bird bath). And those darn ferns snuck in there... I thought I had gotten all of them out, but they appear to be as tricky, if not moreso then those freaking lillies! But where they came in looks kinda cool, so I may leave them there... for now.

Weekend Arts and Crafts!

I think Sunday afternoons we are going to dedicate to making some kind of craft project together as a family. I bought a couple little birdhouses, some paint on sale, and a couple sheets of scrapbook paper for my bird house. The babies ended up completely covered in paint (but delighted!) and I'm quite proud of my birdhouse! My goal was to make something "upscale" looking to nestle within the branches of my new hydrangea bush. It was an adventure and a half getting that hydrangea, but I can't even begin to express how excited I am to actually own it! It is going to go in the back corner where the dogs tromp, but since it's a woody bush, I think they will leave it alone for the most part. I think. I hope...

So here's what will my hydrangea should look like later this summer:

And here's the birdhouse that will be hanging out within it's branches. I think it turned out quite lovely!

I Wasn't Kidding!

Here's part of my little veggie garden as of 7:00am this morning. All kinds of little plants popping up all over! We may get some veggies out of this garden yet! Below are some detail shots of the little guys making their way to the surface and beyond. (The seemingly empty row is where I planted carrot. There are a couple teeny tiny wispy sproutlet's, but I'm not sure yet if they are carrot, or if they are just weeds. I'll give them another week to see what they end up being)

Zucchini! Their leave are so thick and wide, I guess I never realized how HUGE their starter leaves are! These little plants are over 2 inches wide!

Squash! Slightly smaller than the zucchini, but just as glorious as they break their way through the surface!

Peas! I've put a little cedar trellis down to train my peas on, but I'm thinking this might not be the best solution for these little guys. They look so complex as they pop their little heads through the soil. They haven't opened any leaves yet, but the way they are all curled in on themselves looks pretty amazing.

Cucumber! These guys are still pretty small yet, but they are a beautiful dark green. Such pretty starter leaves!

Last night I did a quick till job between rows to keep the weeds down to a minimum. I'm considering using the Preen mulch for between rows, but need to do a little more research on it... I don't want it to effect the soil composition since this is a veggie garden and I don't want herbicides in contact with food! Not sure if we'll have kohlrabi or cabbage this year, since I managed to stop right in the middle of those 2 rows. Oops.

My sweet 100s tomato plant (far right at top of first picture) doesn't seem to have grown much to me, but it appears to be getting ready for it's first set of little yellow blooms already!

I also got my little baby clematis into the ground and I'm hoping they take off like a shot now that they are in dirt and touching a trellis to climb. They have been hanging out in the front porch with my other little seedlings until the threat of frost was over (which reminds me, should post a picture of my seedlings... Peppers aren't so little anymore!) and they just kind of stunted at 2 inches tall. I'm hoping that was because they had nothing to climb and less than stable roots. I think I'll take weekly pics on Friday mornings to keep track of all my little plants progress. :)