Planting Complete!

Well after three back breaking intense days the garden is all in!  Ok...well...all but two plants that I have yet to find this year (a white and Japanese eggplant.)  Here is my little OCD garden chart for this year.  I highly recommend a chart so you can remember what varieties of each item you have planted.

I did a few things differently this year.  First up instead of newspaper under my mulch between rows I used a "gardening fabric."  It looks like plastic but is a fabric-y material that came in 3' widths 50' long.  This was beneficial for a couple reasons.  It was easier to handle than the newspaper (I tapped it in with pegs as I went so there wasn't an issue with blowing breezes.)  It also helped me with my row spacing.  Person I talked to at Home Depot said I "should" be able to lift it back up at the end of the season which would make getting the mulch up WAY easier than raking.  He said I should be able to re-use it for between 3-5 years.  We shall see if it was a good long term investment but it wasn't too expensive and was MUCH easier than newspaper.

Also last year I planted everything at once and then went back over the course of around 3 weeks time and laid all the paper and mulch.  This year I just didn't want to drag it out-I planted a row, them mulched a row.  By Sunday evening after two days and still not being done I wondered if this was the smartest way to go about the task-but by last night when I was DONE DONE-I was pleased I had just decided to knock it all out.

I'm a little worried all my transplanted pepper plants that I started from seed are just not strong/healthy enough to make it outside.  They are so tiny and already appear to be being eaten by something...

I moved all my herbs back outside and was happy that most of them made it through the winter, I have added a new basil plant, some flat leaf parsley and a new thyme plant.

As a side note, if you like keeping potted plants inside but have white carpet like I do (who puts in white carpet?) you should get a couple of these tubs that are supposed to sit under a washing machine.  I took a picture of this nasty one on purpose so you could see how they saved my carpet this winter!  I also used one under the seedling containers.

So I leave you with some tomatoes-nice, pretty, healthy plants. 

83 actual plants planted, 5 more rows of seed, 4 cages of seed and with everything mulched and ready I can get back to my real job-oh and The Hunger Games series!

Getting Ready for Planting...

Well folks, it's about that time...that's right...time for planting.  Actually I thought last weekend would be planting weekend but our local weather guru Ken Cook (a fellow gardener who lives very near here) said to hold off and he was right.  Lows in the 30's predicted for tonight!  We got some trees cut down to provide for more sunlight in the gardening area (by got them cut I mean Leslie cut, I tugged on the rope, he cut it up and split it and I loaded it.)  So as a plus we are set for wood for awhile!

We got it tilled up (by that I mean we borrowed a tiller, Leslie tilled and I stayed out of the way.)

So now the watching and waiting game starts.  I'd like to get some things planted this weekend, but we basically haven't had any rain for almost a month and the plants I need to purchase are not on sale.  The plants I am raising inside are doing fairly well.

 Someone mentioned to me that growing them indoors might cause them to be "leggy" and they were right, I think it is because they are reaching for the sun from the windows.

All the pepper varieties from New Mexico State University are growing well, while two packs of older seeds I had leftover from last year didn't germinate at all.  I'm glad I tested them inside before planting directly.
I'm going to watch the sale ads that come out tomorrow and decide if it is time to go ahead with everything or not.  It looks like it is going to be a nice weekend for planting...