Where to start ...

It has been so long since my last post, it's hard to know where to begin.  I know!  It's always good to start with something like this ...

or this ...

or this ...

or maybe this ..

Okay, I guess you get the idea.  :)  We have all been having a lot of fun outdoors since the weather has been getting warmer.  And as you can see, Bruce and his cat Lucy are still good buds. 

Of course, don't forget Koda!

We have also been hard at work, getting the gardens ready for warmer weather!  With mom's helping watching Bruce on a number of weekends in February and March, Gage and I got an awesome start on our outdoor projects!

Hanging out with grandma while mommy and daddy transplant strawberries

"Daddy, what IS that all over your hands???  Kinds looks like fun ..."

Okay, so here is what my kitchen table looked like the first weekend of March.  Yep, that's right ... FIVE flats of seeds.  One of tomatoes (specialty varieties I ordered from Totally Tomatoes ... the largest selection of tomato seeds you will EVER find), one of herbs and peppers, one of annual flowers, one of perennial flowers, one of lisianthus seeds (looks like a rose, but no thorns ... I have NEVER found seeds until this year ... wahoo!).

Thanks to my handy dandy husband, I had this germination box for my flats this year.  This was totally the key to success ... perfect light and warmth in the box made for better germination and stronger seedlings than I have EVER had in the past.  Nearly every tomato germinated and most of my herbs and peppers.  I had hit or miss luck with the annuals and perennials, as usual.  The lisianthus seeds took forEVer to germinate (almost 4 weeks!), but they finally did.  They are still super tiny, so we will see if they survive and amount to anything. 

Since I had such good luck this year with my tomato seedlings, I found that I needed to pot them up this past weekend.  Above is my flat of tomato seedlings - about 70 plants total.  Yeah, they were pretty squished in that one little flat.

This guy's poor little roots need more room!!

Ahhhh ... that's better.  :)

Great.  Now I have FOUR flats of tomatoes.  And no more room in the germination box.  These have been living on my kitchen table by night and on the porch by day as I harden them off.  Would someone please loan me a greenhouse?  Thank you.

Here is the beginning of my kitchen garden.  I am very excited about this!  As you can see, we have divided it into four sections, and then dug out pathways between and covered them with woodchips.  I have used the trellises from our wedding :) and Gage has built me 6 more, so that I can grow crops UP this year, instead of OUT, making it easier to weed and nagivate.  The key to my kitchen garden is planting SMALL crops of lots of different things, just for our family to eat.  I can't WAIT! 



But, don't start thinking that means this is ALL we are doing this year.  :)  More pictures soon (I promise) of the "west garden".

And finally, I can't resist ... here's one more.  :)