dreaming of summertime..

I was reading through one of my magazines (garden design 3/11) this morning and he had written about gardeners spending winter months reading seed catalouges and fantasizing about summer's bounty. And I had to agree.
I spent winter dreaming of my garden, what seed's I would be starting, and what new feature I would be building or installing for the next growing season. I dreamed of drip watering systems, and building a strawberry pyramid, of asparagus bed's, and installing a fence or netting to keep people out of my garden. I studied training grapes, and butterfly houses, and found a friend with access to a garden rototiller. I lived on google, and other plant website's looking at new seeds and tomato trellis's, luffa sponge seeds and goji berries.
I lived in California for 8 years and while I did have a pineapple, and 3 lemon trees growing I never thought to have an actual garden other than for flowers. And yet my 1st summer here at the Motel I had a garden built using some discarded wood in the back, and the next year I had 3 beautiful raised beds built. Here I am about to get started on my 3rd year with a real garden and I can hardly contain myself. Ive ordered dwarf lemon and lime tree's, a giant variety and purple asparagus, red onions and a new patio pineapple plant. Ive got some new plant supports in mind, and need to decide on which of my 3 options I will settle on for the garden this year. I'm also really hoping that my friend Jimmy gets back from Oregon in time for all of this too, I'm going to need some able bodied assistance this year if I'm going to get any of the additions done.

Getting ready... Even tho it's still February.

I hadn't planned on it but I found myself wandering the plant and seed aisles today.
I had noticed walmart was selling some grape starters earlier in the week, so I started checking them out, most didnt look so good but I found one with quite a few spots that were growing, so I grabbed it. It's a red variety, says canadice seedless on the container, and that it's 2 years old. I need to figure out if I can plant it in a container, and where I'll put it. I've been wanting to grow grape's ever since I lived in Sacramento and they grew wildly over our fence.


I got some seeds too, Some heirloom tomato's (yellow pear and brandywine), cucumbers, cherry tomato's, Summer golden squash, and Zucchini. As well as some pretty burgundy sunflowers.


I also got a couple of those mini greenhouse's to start my seed's in this year. Normally I use box lids or some new litter boxes I get from the dollar store. Then all the peat pots set in those and I can water and take them outside when I need to. But I lost a lot of starter plant's last year so Im going to be smarter about it this year. I figure they'll be safer with a cover anyway!

If you couldn't already tell, I cant wait till I can start planting!!

Today's cost: 28.40

Nessa's Garden makes it into the local paper.

This is the picture that got into our local newspaper last year. Apparently it raised quite a fuss with all the little old ladies, they were upset that they had been growing certain flowers and their own gardens for years and hadn't once gotten their pictures in the paper. I have a friend that works for the Times, and we were just joking around at first. But then my Strawberry blonde sunflowers were just so tall and pretty that I had this picture taken and sent it in. A couple days later I see my own face in the header section and open the paper to find a big full color picture with my name on it.
I bought about 6 papers that day so that I could end up in all our family albums, and send some off to my mom and my daughter.
Now I just need to figure out what gorgeous flowers I'll be growing this year so I can do it again!

I just won't do it...

Ive been eagerly awaiting the planting season, so much so that Ive practically been climbing the walls wanting it to be spring. I live up in N.E Colorado and lately it will snow and melt and be nice for a few days just to snow all over again. Last year I started many seeds indoors but I did it too early. My poor little seedlings got too big and leggy and just couldn't hold on until it was warm enough that I could plant them outside, so pretty much all of them died.

I was at Safeway the other day getting some groceries so I could bake, that seems to be the only thing I can do to pass the time without thinking about my garden these days. Anyway the cashier and I got to talking about the weather and she said she thinks everything is starting to bud, but I told her I wont do it this year. I wont fall for the weather's tricks and kill a bunch of baby sproutling's this year.
I have a friend who started an indoor grow room, so now Im thinking I might even just take my seed's over there to start them. I don't have a light, I just use peat pot's, some box lid's to keep them and the water in, and I take them outside for a couple hours to get some sun. But growing indoors with a lamp would be cool, and I'm sure I could get some stuff to start indoors that I have been previously unsuccessful with.
Im still very eager to start my garden, but Ive at least learned from my past gardening years that you cant force it by starting too early. You have to wait for the right time or you just cant do it.

Oddities..

Those that know me know I love the strange and unique. Now that I garden I grow strange colored items, and unique veggies and flowers.
My 1st year I grew Blue pumpkins, the 2nd year it was White Lumina ones, and this year I want to grow some Red french pumpkins. I also have 5 different colors of Sunflowers planned for this year.
My Mom and I were looking at all my plant catalogs when I went to visit her in early January and I was finally able to show her all the weird colored things Ive been telling her about for so long. So she suggested I do an all purple bed this year.
I did want purple dragon carrots, purple haze potatoes, and purple passion asparagus. But purple cauliflower just looks too weird. And I dont know if anyone else would eat that many purple veggies. I had to give so much produce away last year that if I had extra purple stuff I don't know who Id give it to!
I want to grow some luffa sponges too, I guess theyre like a zucchini just dried out. I'd like to grow these blue lebanese squash and blue cantaloupes, some white cucumbers, some almost black bell peppers, and some strawberry popcorn this year too. But we'll see what my budget allows this year. I finally started a seed box last fall, so I have all my seed's in one place now. I might not have to buy many more other than the new weird one's.

It's been a pretty mild winter and I had thought it was getting close to planting time seeing as my entire flowerbed had melted and my raised bed's were starting to get clear too. But then it started snowing every couple days again. Yesterday it was -6 when I woke up, and two days ago -31. Today we got a really good dusting of some super wet snow and our whole county was under an accident warning. I don't think I'll be getting to plant any time soon. It's so hard for me to wait, I don't know why I never planted a food garden while I lived in California.

2011 Garden Notes

I tried to have a blog last year and had pictures for it and everything. But since I didn't know what I was doing, or the program I was using I ended up with a bunch of weird text and just gave it up. But I'm trying again, and don't plan on using any foreign programs this time!

After the problems I had last year with starting too many plants indoors too early, I want to be better prepared for my garden this year. It's the 3rd year I'll be having this garden, and I want it to do better this year. Id like even more of a variety this time. and I want to get a sprinkler system installed this year too. I want to be realistic about what I grow, It will have to be something that I'll use often. The odd colored pumpkins don't really count tho, those are just a given in my garden. Much like my varied Sunflowers.

So I'm finally making a list of what I want to get from my garden this year, things I know I'll use. I know I want Strawberry Rhubarb pie's, Homemade Salsa, Salad's, Stuff for my Chili, lasagna, and casserole's, and just some fresh veggies and fruit's.

With those dishes in mind that means I would need: Onions, Tomato's, Cilantro, Jalapeno's, and peppers; Lettuce, Cucumber's, Spinach, Broccoli, Cherry Tomato's,Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Asparagus, and I want blue or red potato's this year.

I want to add more fruit too, so I'll probably have to add some big pot's to the garden to bring them indoors over winter. The Strawberries, and Rhubarb were planted over the previous 2 years so they should come back on their own. Hopefully the raspberry and blueberry bushes will too. The Goji berry bush just needs taken outside since I got it pulled out of the garden right before it froze to death last season. It's been trying to survive, but need's some real sunlight.

I will add another dwarf banana tree, passion flower vine, a pineapple plant, and hopefully a couple grape vines.

I want a few fruit trees for the lake house too. They would take a while to get established but one tree in particular that I want has nectarines, plums, peaches, and apricots. Who wouldnt love picking 6 different fruits from one tree?! I also want to put a cherry plum tree out there, I just wonder if all the critters would get all the fruit before we did. Maybe I'll plant the tree's in some big movable pot's.

I'm going to have my hands full this spring apparently! But Ive been eager to get back into the garden ever since the first freeze started killing stuff off last Fall!