Tomatoes Everywhere!

Small, Medium and Large tomatoes are shooting up! They're anxious for warmer weather, too. The small tomato plants on the left really surprised us....the seed was from 1995 and we didn't think they'd even germinate. They are Brandywine tomatoes and hopefully, if they all survive (there's only a few that sprouted), we'll get some delicious tomatoes off these vines. The large tomatoes on the right were planted about 6 weeks ago and are ready to plant in the greenhouse in the hopes we'll have very early tomatoes at the farmer's market. The medium size tomatoes are about 4 weeks old and the small ones are about 2 weeks old. We're growing a large variety of tomatoes this year with several hundred seedlings started and just waiting to go into the soil! Bring on the warm, sunny weather!

Planting Potatoes

At last it's time to plant the spuds! We had a small window of good weather Saturday which allowed us to quickly plant the four varieties of potatoes we're growing this year. We had just gotten the last furrow covered when the rain began - Whew! There was one small glitch in the potato order this year....we thought we had ordered an "All Red" potato, but ordered "Mountain Rose" instead! Had really been looking forward to a red, white and blue potato salad on the 4th of July! Oh well, maybe next year! Didn't discover our mistake until we opened the shipping box and began planting the spuds.

First Day Of Spring

It's here at last.....the FIRST DAY OF SPRING! The winter has seemed so long and cold this year. Even our little iris reticulata are late this spring. We normally see them peeking out of the soil in February, but this year they didn't show up until March. This is one of my favorite flowers not only for how beautiful they are, but because they are the harbingers of spring and are always such a welcome sight to our winter weary eyes.

These little beauties are natives of the Caucasus (Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Georgia). They bloom in different shades of blue and purple in late winter or very early spring. The flowers are said to have a sweet violet-like scent, but you have to poke your nose nearly inside the bloom to detect anything. Each flower has six petals, three "falls" and three upright petals called "standards" that are usually smaller than the falls.

They return each year and will sometimes naturalize and spread. We've had some of the clumps die after blooming for several years. They need a dry dormant period of time in the summer and since ours are in a large flower garden bed on the West side of our house, they occasionally get too much water. They require a well-drained soil and do well in raised beds or in rock gardens. Be sure and keep them at the front of your plantings since they only grow four to six inches tall and can easily be covered by larger plants.

The garlic came through the winter just fine even though we didn't get around to putting a thick mulch over the bed in the fall.

Ready For Spring Planting

Our new Market Garden field is all ready for spring planting! This former pasture has been plowed, disced and harrowed to prepare it for its first veggie growing season! Next come the corrugates and then the plantings. All the seed potatoes will be planted tomorrow.....we're growing four different varieties of potato this year....an all blue, an all red, Yukon Gold and a German yellow potato. Yummy! Can't wait to sneak a few small potatoes out of the dirt in a few weeks!

Crazy Idaho Weather!

The morning started out sunny and cold, but well above freezing, so all the little seedlings growing on the sunporch were moved out onto the deck to catch the sun's rays. We'd decided to move them out of the unheated greenhouse since the temperatures have been dropping pretty low at night and we were afraid they would freeze. At 2:30 in the afternoon, the first flakes of snow started falling.....where did this snow come from.....? We rushed the trays of seedlings back indoors and under the grow lights just as the snow really began to come down hard. The temperature is still relatively warm, so the snow won't stay around long, but it sure caught us by surprise!

What used to be just bare ground once again has a white blanket covering it! Seems like spring weather is still a long ways off.....We're getting really anxious to get the market garden up and running! Hope it warms up soon and stays warm!

Moving Day

Another winter project completed....the completion of this "dual purpose" table will allow us to begin moving seedlings into the greenhouse. We wanted a portable table we could use in the greenhouse to hold seedling trays, but that could be used to wash veggies fresh out of the market garden. This table is covered with hardward cloth which will allow the water and mud to drain off any vegetables washed on its surface.....invaluable for washing root crops - carrots, radishes, etc. We'll evaluate this table over the next few months and may make a couple more if it works well for us. So far it's met our initial requirements: inexpensive and easy to make, light enough for one person to handle/move, small enough to be able to reach across the width but large enough to hold several trays/harvested crops, and strong enough to support whatever is placed on it. So far, so good!

And finally.....moving day for the little seedlings! These have been growing under lights in the sun porch - with the dual purpose table set up in the greenhouse, it's time to begin moving them to their new home. The greenhouse will be getting very crowded over the next week or two....filling up with all the seedlings that will eventually be transplanted out to the market garden. Watching these little plants grow healthy and strong is one of the best parts of what we do! Bring on the warm, summer weather!