Planting Time! (4/4/26)

Finally! 

I've been waiting impatiently for it to be time to start sowing outside. Because I'm a newish gardener, I follow the seed packet instructions as closely as possible. I looked up our average last frost date, and counted back to make sure I wasn't planting too early. Now, this winter has been ... let's say, mild ... so I probably would have been fine planting even earlier than the seed packets suggested, but I didn't want to risk it.

My original plan had been to use our old slow-feed net as a trellis for my peas to climb, but I decided not to cannibalize it so that Jay and I still had two feeders and nets for when we travel. We can put two round bales out, and then we shouldn't need anyone to replenish the hay supply while we're gone. With the slow-feed net out of the running, I had to come up with something else.

Luckily, L.E. had an old day bed in storage that she was looking to get rid of, so I scrounged up a piece of that and planted it in the pea patch. Because our winds are so brutal at times, I secured it with four pieces of rebar: two taller pieces on the north side of the trellis, where the wind typically comes from; and two smaller pieces on the south side of the trellis, in an effort to provide some structure when the wind inevitably kicks up. I like the end result - it looks like it's free-standing.

I'll admit, I rattle canned the rebar white so that it wouldn't
stick out like a sore thumb.

Because I don't have a ton of confidence in my newly greenish thumb, I do everything in my power to increase the odds of germination, including soaking my peas prior to planting. I planted three different varieties of snap peas: traditional green, one with purple flowers and green pods, and a third with purple flowers and purple pods (they're my favorite). I tried alternating them as I planted, but I think I didn't do a very good job in the middle, not that it'll matter once they start growing. 

Jelly jars did double duty as pea-soaking jars.

Last year, I planted my seeds on the south side of my trellis, and the wind really beat them up, so this year, I planted on the north (far) side so that when the wind kicks up (are you sensing a theme?) it'll blow the vines into the trellis, not away from it. I then woke up in the middle of the night in a panic that I planted the peas in the shade of the trellis and convinced myself that they weren't going to grow, because I put them in the shade. I couldn't very well go out in the middle of the night to make sure they weren't in the shade; I had to wait until the sun actually came up. (Good news: the peas get sun throughout the day.)

Some of my struggles last year were because of watering. In an effort not to run up a big water bill, I tried watering "just enough" and stunted my garden because of it. This year, I decided to copy L.E. and install soaker hoses in all of my beds. I only accomplished installing three of the six that I need, but I'll get the rest put in when we return from Scotland.

I'm attempting to grow broccolini this year. It's one of my favorite veggies, and it never occurred to me to try to grow it until I saw an ad for seeds. They were stupid expensive as far as seeds go (over $5 for 20 seeds), so they'd better grow! L.E. warned me that members of the broccoli family are prone to pests, so I decided to cover our old chicken tractor with insect mesh to protect the broccolini. I didn't have quite enough netting to completely cover it, so I ordered more. The broccolini will be protected before they begin to sprout. Additionally, I read that onions are a good pest deterrent and companion plant, so I put some onion in with the broccolini.

This chicken tractor frame has been so useful!

My gothic garden has to go in in stages, but I did get to plant the poppies. And, under Maggie's new sweet pea trellis, I planted some creeping thyme seeds. Those seeds are so microscopic that I was afraid they'd blow away, so I covered them with greenhouse plastic and weighed them down with heavy old window anchors.

Inside the cinder blocks, I planted sweet peas.

I've done what I can as far as planting before we leave, and I'm hopeful I'll come back to some babies peeking up through the soil.

Playing Catch-up (3/8/26, 3/17/26, 3/23/26)

I swear, all I have to do is blink and I get behind on posting. The truth is, though, that I hate opening my laptop at home. It's so old and slow that I get frustrated waiting for it to wake up and get moving, so I just wait until I've got extra time at work to post (shhhh, don't tell anyone).

Anyway, the Bionic Cowgirl comes down for Sunday dinner each week, then stays at Nebalee's so she can spend some time with her, too. And, as I've mentioned, I always have a project for us to do. One of Mom's friends said that Mom's love language is "acts of service", and they're so right. We all benefit from it, but I've been extra lucky for the past few years, with her help building Whimsy and helping out with Maggie. So far this year, the focus has been on getting the garden started. Later in the spring, we'll go back to working on Whimsy, who needs a new coat of paint and I've got to frame in a few of her windows that I'd left hinged to be able to open them. In two years, the only time they've been opened is when the wind does it, so it's time to just frame them in.

Sorry, I'll get back on track. I built Maggie as a potting shed, to house the amazing potting bench that L.E. gifted me. At the beginning of March, the Bionic Cowgirl and I put that potting bench to work starting seeds. Last year, and the year before, our seed starting didn't go very well, so I was determined to be successful this year. I bought trays with domes, fancy organic starting soil, and grow lights. I plugged in an oil heater and put it on a timer, so the temps wouldn't drop overnight. Our seeds are more spoiled than any other being on our place, they'd better grow!

Leeks and bell peppers

Once the seeds were nestled in their boxes under their grow lights, we put up a utility shelf. I have lots of cool things in the Magical Potting Shed, but most of the actual business of potting is hidden away in the potting bench. Having a utility shelf within easy reach to hold everything we use every day was a no-brainer, so Mom helped me get it put up.

With the seeds planted, and the shelf up, I put Mom to work spray painting the cinder blocks I chose to use for flower boxes. She painted them a metallic silver, then we filled them with potting soil. Now, we just have to wait a couple more weeks to plant the sweet peas in them.

The book nook was meant for living in Maggie, but she gets so dusty that I knew I needed to protect the nook in some way. Jay suggested an acrylic display box, which was brilliant! Unfortunately, I could not find one that was only the size of the book nook, but book nooks are designed to live on bookshelves between books, so I went to 2nd and Charles and found a set of Harry Potter books to live in the display case along with the little nook.

At first, I was a little surprised with myself that I'd go buy books just for display - books are for reading! - then, I justified it by reminding myself I could read the books. It's possible to just open the door of the display case and just pull a book out to read. Eventually, the Gremlin will be old enough that I can start reading these to him.

Mom and I had a good day's work that afternoon. The following Sunday, we headed to Moab for the sentencing, so Sunday dinner looked a little different. It was late when I got home on Monday, so I waited until Tuesday morning to go check on our seeds. The leeks were supposed to emerge at about ten days, and they did!

Look at my babies!

I've watched them pretty carefully over the last week or so, and only about half have come up. It's a good thing I use "black thumb math" when planting, and plant double what I think I need, just in case this happens. Yesterday, I moved the leeks out from under the dome, because they were almost getting tall enough to touch it. Now, they're in a different window, still under grow lights, and they'd better keep growing!

I need to thin them, but I don't wanna.

L.E. and I started our tomato seeds a few days ago, so now it's their turn to get to growing. 

Bonsai Bar with Nebalee

I've probably talked about it before, but I prefer to give experiences as gifts rather than things. So for Christmas, I gifted Nebalee a sister date at a bonsai bar event. It looked like something she and her green thumb would really enjoy, and any time I can force sister-time, I'll do it. We don't get to spend nearly enough time together anymore.

The event was held at a brewery located between our two houses, so it was perfect. They provided everything we needed, and had 'extras' for sale. When we first got there, we were told to pick a tree that spoke to us. Now, a couple of years ago, I would have laughed at that, but now that I'm attempting to be a gardener, I listened and one chose me. 

We used dwarf jades for our bonsai.

The next step was to name it. Huh. Most of my plants have names, but the little tree hadn't given up his name yet. I told Nebalee that he would tell me eventually. Also, odd that the tree is a he, since most of my plants are female, so I guess he was talking to me a little bit.

Getting ready to dig in.

He didn't want to come out of the pot, but when he did, he reminded me of a Mandrake from Harry Potter. Minus the screaming, thankfully.

I imagine this is how we both looked once
I wrested the tree from his pot.

Everyone, meet Mandrake, Drake for short.

The hardest part, for me, of the whole endeavor was scraping away the dirt and loosening the roots. I'm always afraid I'll hurt the roots and kill the whole plant. Once we'd freed the roots, it was time to put them in their pots.

Again, we had to make decisions. Turning the plant this way and that, we had to decide which was the front, then decide how we wanted it in the pot: straight up and down, or at an angle? So many decisions.

I wanted Drake to be at a sharp angle.

Drake did not, so this is our compromise.

Nebalee's tree, Jasper, liked the angle.

This is a bad picture, but Jasper has a much
more dramatic angle than Drake.

If I thought just repotting was hard, and had a lot of decisions to make, I was in for an awakening! The first prune was easy: trim the leaves a quarter of an inch from the trunk of the tree so we could see the 'bones' of the tree. Then, the decisions got progressively harder: choose one of two opposing limbs to cut off, then start thinning the crown and determining a shape for your tree. 

Fully planted, packed in diatomaceous earth,
ready to begin pruning.

Opposite branches pruned, ready to start the crown.

Once the crown was thinned to our liking,
it was time to shape the tree with wires.

Done. Drake on the left, Jasper on the right,
extra cuttings in the back.

I'm not in love with Drake's shape right now, and would have loved to add more swooshes to his branches, but I'm afraid of hurting him. Once he grows a bit more, I can adjust the wires to give him more shape.

We gathered up some of the cuttings to take home to try to plant some 'mame' (mini bonsai). Of course, the instructors were willing to sell us cute little mame containers for once they rooted, along with the drip trays for underneath our pots, and some special fertilizer. Nebalee took the cuttings home, and she'll be in charge of getting the mame started.

I was worried about where I'd keep Drake, especially when I heard the care instructions. I don't have a lot of sun windows in my house. I initially thought he'd be great in Maggie, but it turns out that she's not quite right for him. Maybe this summer he can go live in there, but even with all of the insulation, she'll still get a bit too cold for him in the winter. I ended up moving my Puerto Rican oregano from my bedroom plant shelf into the kitchen and put Drake in its place, next to my failing succulents.

I wasn't sure how well he'd like it, but the other day, when I was watering him, I saw new growth!

Now, of course, the question is, so I let him keep his new buds, or snip them and force him to continue to establish his roots. Okay, that's not much of a question, because I know the answer, but I'm loathe to clip those cute little buds. I'll give them until his next watering before they get sacrificed for the greater good.

Putting Maggie to Work

Following last year's failure to get any seeds to germinate, and the subsequent building of the Magical Potting Shed, we finally got to put Maggie to work. I'm not finished insulating Maggie, she's about 60% complete, and I need to buy a couple more sheets of insulation to get her to the point that Chief can put up the OSB walls. However, between the insulation I do have, and the warmer nights, L.E. and I decided it was time to start our seeds.

Not only did Maggie get to work, but we got to use the re-purposed potting bench! I've been looking forward to this day for a long time. Maggie isn't a large shed, but she's big enough for the three of us to work in there side-by-side. The pull-out dough board was perfect! It allowed me to work between L.E. and the Bionic Cowgirl without us bumping elbows.

This pull-out dough board is the
reason I fell in love with this piece.

Mom donated vintage trays to use.

L.E. getting going on her seeds.

L.E.'s seeds happily hanging out in a
south window.

My seeds in the other south window.

L.E. always plants a much more diverse garden than I do, but I'm getting there. This year, I'm attempting sugar snap peas, potatoes, and onions, which are already in the ground. The peas are starting to come up, but the potatoes and onions aren't doing much. They went in a week after the peas, so I expect to start seeing something in the next week or two.

The seeds I planted are San Marzano, brandywine, and cherry tomatoes, along with some small watermelons. I've become such a hoarder re-purposer, that I couldn't let L.E. get rid of a pallet stand thingy that her house windows came on. Instead, I'm going to enclose the bottom pallet, add dirt, and plant the watermelon so it can climb the pallet-formed trellis. 

I realized that after I plant the watermelons, I will still have a lot of area in the pallet that was going to be full of dirt, and I can't let that be unused. I looked up companion plants for watermelon, and found that I'd planted most of those elsewhere, but did find that they do well with peppers, so I'll buy some jalapeno and serrano starts to keep the watermelon plants company. 

I've also been trying to figure out what to plant on the north side of the pea patch, because I can't let that good dirt go to waste. I think I've settled on glass gem popcorn. I have a couple of varieties of sweet corn that I planted last year, but we have a very generous neighbor who allows us to harvest his sweet corn, so it seems silly to grow my own, if I can get some guaranteed good stuff from him. My glass gem popcorn didn't do well last year, but maybe this year, with more space it'll do better. Also in the pea patch, I'll plant cucumbers.

This is a huge increase from my attempt last year, but I've made some tweaks to my gardening plans, which basically means container gardening is out and in-ground gardening is in. 

Send all of the green thumb juju my garden's way, please. It'll need it.