The Plants, The Plants, The Plants are on Fire

Things have heated up 'round here. Last weekend was cold and chased me indoors, this weekend I am status checking plants so as not to fry them. What a world we live in. It was a close call with the east facing row of lettuce and a few little lettuce leaves were lost. I must have blocked this out of my memory of last year. But when it reaches 90 degrees in late April, the weather means business. Not to worry though, a sheer panel went straight to work, coupled with a bamboo stalk, and tad-da! a shade tent!

And let there be shade...

The lettuce a little thinner.

Holding up that luck.

Not only did a few lettuce leaves bite the dust, err dirt, but three baby herb plants did too. The sun is just too darn hot. Now there is a transition area for the plantlings before they go to their final resting spot. I call it Jesus (think with the pronunciation of Spanish, not religion).

Jesus is my friend.

 I came to the realization that I need a friend with a truck. Now being an individual who used to own a truck I know the importance of having such a mechanism to haul things. This would make my pocket book one happy item. Instead of having an appropriate vehicle available for use and purchasing soil by the ton I went out and bought 3 more bags of soil. My pocket book is not a happy camper on this, and I am up to 9 bags of soil so far this year (and its only April). YIKES!!! The packaging involved in such an activity is just atrocious...but it is the only way to garden until I own a truck.

And a garden needs soil...

Here are a few shots from what is going on in the garden so far...So many plants need to make it outside...Thank you sweet Jesus (Chuy) for being the transition to the outside.

Carrots.

Last year's chard is flowering

close up.

 This is an amazing chard and it has been consumed for over a year now. I am letting a couple go to seed for the saving for those future generations.

Oregano and parsley came back and are rocking

Peacevine cherry tomato with itty bitty flowers

Poppies from last year

The bird of paradise has numerous buds ready to bloom!

The soap has hardened and needs a tad longer to ensure the caustic burning materials are no longer hurtful to the skin. I believe this has been worth the price and the small burning sensation I received. The smells are yummy and will invigorate the senses. It won't be too much longer before it makes its way into the bathroom.

Soap out of their molds and getting un-caustic

Numerous plants are still needing work to be done before they are planted. Shade structures and climbing apparatuses built, bird proof areas created, etc. And then there are the tomatoes. Those darn things, there will be close to 30 plants by the time it is said and done. Six more will be added to buckets today and a tomatillo and an unidentified tomato were added to the garlic box in a corner where nothing came up. Anyone want to work on their salsa making, canning, or drying skills? I might need day laborers this summer.

Progress Fosters Renewal

Aah, President's weekend. It was supposed to be a 3-day weekend that turned into 5 days off with a touch of flu and a visit to the dentist. Ok, in all fairness the trip to the dentist was scheduled, but the flu was a flat out sneaker upper and took me as its victim in the wee hours of Friday. Ick, is all I have to say about this thing. It was a horrible, horrible 3 days and I sure hope the next flu is not as bad as this one.

I had high hopes for this weekend too. I missed the Mystery Ball but didn't feel like I should share the joyous feelings I had been experiencing. Lots of work and time went into the project with no gratification with seeing people interact with the piece. I must say it turned out pretty damn good from what I could tell when we set it up Thursday night. I was also hoping to get a bit of birding in, but no. No new life birds added to my list. I did, however, get to a bit of gardening. After being in bed for 3 days (the third was a 'just in case' day) I just had to not lay down for a bit.  I found gardening can be done at a snail's pace, so snail's pace it went. Since I had over half a bag of soil left, planting was on the top of the list.

There were 4, technically 5 since mesclun mix comes from 2 packages, kinds of seeds that I had yet to plant from this year's seed purchase. Chives, carrots, spinach, and the mesclun mix were put to soil. There were also a few plants that were planted back on January 9 that needed to be transplanted. Hogheart paste and Peacevine cherry tomatoes are in full force and look quite happy in their bigger space.

This gardening season is starting off GREAT! I am glad I started so early on the seeds and able to apply a few mistakes learned from last year. I can almost taste the yummy goodness already...