peas planted!

Friday, April 28, 2017

Our updated vegetable calendar app is out!! Skippy's Vegetable Planting Calendar  We've added lots of new vegetables. 101 to choose from now. And each has an information sheet with planting information. There are still Spring, Summer and Winter planting seasons to choose between. Still the same simple to use format.

If you try it, let me know what you think. It's a little late in the spring planting season, but I'm still using it every day. And the Fall planting season starts mid-May, for long season crops like Brussels sprouts.

Friday, April 21, 2017

my garden in the rain - peas, asparagus, and lettuce

asparagus IMG_0949 pea sprouts IMG_0935

The rain is cold and dreary for me, but my plants are enjoying it, it seems. Peas and asparagus are sprouting.

Earlier in the week, I planted a bed with spring greens. I have several colors of lettuce, so I tried to mix it up and make a pretty bed. I hope the pattern will be nice when it grows up. The bed has lettuce, spinach, arugula, kale, escarole, bunching onions, and a few marigolds.

speckles lettuce IMG_0940 truchas lettuce IMG_0942

lettuce bed IMG_0939

Other things going on in my garden are some nice big garlic sprouts and the last few heads of spinach, escarole, and lettuce left over from my winter tunnel.

garlic bed IMG_0944 winter bed IMG_0943
garden IMG_0945

Monday, April 17, 2017

today's harvest

My first harvest of the year - spinach, broccolini and bok choi. It's from my winter tunnel. I planted in the fall, it over-wintered, and grew up this spring. We'll be eating lot's of fresh greens this week.


harvest_spinach IMG_0698
harvest_broccolini MG_0702 harvest_bok_choi  IMG_0695

Monday, April 10, 2017

sunning seedlings

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I'm so busy with my gardens, new bees, my dogs, and updating our vegetable calendar app that I'm having no time to post! It's been a week. I have some great photos from the past week that I'll try to add this week.

Today these little seedlings are out getting some sun on the patio. The sun is so bright that I'll give them a couple hours of it and then move them to an area with less sun.

Wednesday, April 05, 2017

my potato shipment is here

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I mail ordered a box of seed potatoes (Green Mountain) from Moose Tubers and they arrived today. I was surprised it's already time for planting potatoes!

Earlier, I had purchased a small box of red fingerling seed potatoes at a local garden center. They have been "chitting" on my windowsill next to the seedlings that don't fit on my plant shelves. I'll set up the new potatoes to chit too until I get time to plant, which will probably be a week or two yet. The weather is slowly warming up, but we have a lot of cold dreary rain that doesn't encourage work in the garden.

Tuesday, April 04, 2017

me and my new bees

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Actually, it's not so easy to get a selfie with a new bee package. iPhone's don't work so well wearing leather bee gloves. But the bees did pose well I thought. They are very sweet bees. Once they take up residence and start protecting their hive, I won't do selfies with them.

Monday, April 03, 2017

Today I planted seeds for Swiss chard, bulb fennel, bachelor buttons, and purple hyacinth beans. I also replanted cabbage seeds since I somehow lost my previous seedlings.

Sunday, April 02, 2017

getting ready for bees

setting up hives IMG_0577 setting up hives IMG_0583
ready for bees IMG_0589

I'll pick up two packages of bees tomorrow. They'll replace the two hives I lost this past winter. The boxes are now set up and waiting now.

I filled both boxes with nine draw-out frames each with a good amount of honey in them. I'll also feed the bees sugar water in a frame feeder since I don't know what's blooming near me now. I think the maples and willows may be, but not sure.

our last snow storm - hopefully....

My garden got a couple inches of slush from the storm yesterday. But my Mom's garden is seriously buried. Probably eight inches of really heavy snow. I tried to shovel her driveway - usually no problem for me, but only did about two car lengths before I burnt out. Fortunately a plow cleared it a few hours later.

The next weather we have is a big rain storm that supposed to come through here on Tuesday. Rain sounds good. Melt that snow! Fill up our reservoirs!