Monday, March 22, 2010

The start of the growing season.

Happy Spring!

We celebrated the Vernal Equinox with a potluck dinner, party and fire spin jam at our place this past Saturday.  It was wonderful to throw the first real outdoor party of the season, complete with fire pit, homemade wine and a little offering of sweet grass and mead to our newly dug garden plot.  We couldn't have asked for nicer weather... 72 degrees and sunny all weekend long!

Our new raised bed is 13' x 5', and will be about 6-8" deep after the topsoil and compost settle following this first rain.


This little plot is about 2' x 8' and will be home to our greens, herbs and pear tomatoes.  In front we have a dwarf blueberry bush who somehow survived the winter after I forgot about it in the snow, a baby fig tree and a dwarf pomegranate tree (who doubled as our Christmas tree this past year!).


It's been good chicken-cuddling weather.  Popcorn's little feets are free of mud since it's been sunny and the snow is all melted away!


                                        
Our seeds are starting, and I'm nervously waiting to see if our tomato and sweet pepper seeds germinate.  I've honestly never grown such plants from seed (I've always cheated and bought young plants).  But this year we purchased some really neat-o varieties from http://www.seedsavers.org/, and I'm feeling hopeful!!

We planted a small strawberry patch as well, but it started to rain so I didn't get any photos yet.  There's probably about 30 strawberry plants in the bed, and then 6 in each of our two window boxes.  We're planning to grow hops up the front of the building in BIG EarthBoxes... and I'm curious to see how they'll fare in containers.

Now the rains come, and help my little transplanted babies drink deep and build strong roots.  So long as it isn't snow, I'm not going to complain!!  Bring on Spring rains and daffodils!!

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