Garden beginnings

I've been trying to get my garden ready for planting.  It is a slow process.

The garden is full of larkspur so I don't want my husband to trim it all down until they bloom. 

For some reason they are taking their sweet time to bloom this year.  But it's so worth it.

I have a bunch of things ready for the garden but have to finish cleaning out and prepping the garden boxes with garden soil and then there is the matter of deer proofing.  The hubby and I have devised a plan.  We a going to put up some really tall cedar along the fence line and wrap the entire garden with netting.  It will be tricky and if a gate ever gets left open and a deer gets in only to get startled and hurt itself getting out, I will be very upset.  So I think I will put springs on all the gates so they close on their own.  We shall see if it works.  Meanwhile I just keep taking Brink into the garden so he can mark it and hopefully that will keep the deer away until we get everything finished.  

I'm excited.

We decided to save some money this year and plant most of our plants from seed.  

That has been a trial and error learning experience.  I didn't realize how fun it would be to watch your own seeds grow. (Our back deck is so full of plants that it looks like a nursery)

We succeeded in growing about 11 tomato plants from seed.  Eight of them are in the picture below, in the little pots.  The two bigger tomato plants are from my cousins nursery.

The green onions in the pot to the right are from store bought green onions that we used up all but about an inch and stuck in a glass of water to root.  They regrow in days.  We cut the new growth from them to use in soup until they started getting really thin and had lots of root, then I planted them in a bucket and let them grow again.  I cut them as I need them.  They grow about 1/4 inch per day or more.

The plant at the top right is a spider plant, or as I like to call it, an airplane plant.  I don't the care that much for spiders.  It shoots off little spidery mini plants that can be grown in water for a while until the roots are big enough to plant into a pot.

We're growing green beans from seed.  So exciting!  I will need to build a trellis in the garden for them to grown.  We're considering using the bamboo that is growing into our yard from the neighbor behind us.  That stuff is crazy fast growing.  We might as well put it to good use.

I have 8 small pots in the picture below that have green beans that will need planting soon before they vine onto my table. I have more seeds sprouting in the picture below that.  We love green beans, so I hope we have a good crop.

I have several seeds planted in these pots but only a few green beans have come up so far.  

I experimented with soil to see what comes up faster and healthier.

The small pot on the table has a cherry tree of some kind.  My cousin mary sent it to me in the mail as a seedling.  That was fun.  She also sent me a wisteria as a seedling.  It is doing well also.  I tried to take a picture of it but it doesn't show well right now because it's leaves haven't come in all the way.

The cherry tree will need potting soon, I'm sure.  It's growing well.  The little tag that said what kind of tree it is faded, so I will have to research that.  

These are my husbands squash that he planted in one of the garden boxes.  

I seeded some more in pots just in case.  He thinks these are yellow squash.  

The zucchini, in another box, are taking a bit longer to come up.

Below is a picture of the very first larkspur of the season.

I can't wait to see all the blooms.

I spent several hours cleaning out the pond.  There are two lily flowers coming up from one of the pots.  The flower bulbs are a few inches below the water.  I'm looking forward to seeing them.  They'll be either yellow or pink.

The 4 little comets seamed so happy to have a clean pond.  All the lily plants had rooted together into a giant island of muck that floated to the top.  I had to pull it out and cut them all apart.  That was a chore.  I bet it weighed 30 pounds.  Now the fish have room to swim and can see.  :)

The deer eat the lilies, so we have to put wire over the pond to save them.

In the back yard, by the AC unit and cat enclosure, I threw down some larkspur seed a few years ago.  They have reseeded and keep growing thicker and thicker.  This year the entire area is full.  Can't wait to see what that looks like when it blooms.

I always have cans or bottles hanging from the trees or wash line so the kids can shoot them with BB's.  I can only imagine how many BB's are stuck in the wood side of my great grandparents old wash house.  I have a pink BB gun.  Cause that's how I roll.  ;)

Eventually the cans are obliterated by BB's and they rattle.  :)

I went online to research growing a lemon tree from seeds.  Not sure if it will work, but I will keep you posted.  If they grow, it will still take approx 10 years for them to fruit.  I just like the idea of growing them and smelling the leaves.  I think two of the seeds are grapefruit and one is a peach seed.  I don't know if any of them will grow.  One set of lemon seeds has the outer shell removed and another set has the outer and inner she'll removed. Hmmmm...  Should be interesting, if it works.

I love impatiens and the cat and dog solar lights.  They change colors.  It's like a little party in your plant.  

In this picture I have my mint plant on the bottom left and the lemon balm just left of the post at the top.  There is skullcap in the pot with the angel and to the right of that.....I can't remember.  It re seeds each year and sometimes even survives the winter.  That's nice because it has pretty flowers....whatever it is.  I'm sure I will think of the name of it later.

The little 6 pack at the bottom right is bell pepper.

So...that is what everything looks like so far.  I will keep you posted on how everything grows, especially the lemon seeds.  Cross your fingers.  :)