Living on the Edge

The Garden is Planted

Earlier this week we finished getting the vegetables into the ground.  The last things we put in were the bush beans and snap peas (those rarely make it into the house!  Usually we eat them right there in the garden or on the way into the house. LOL!)

Here's the first vegetable to come out of the garden:

Fall was so long ago this year that I have no memory of planting any onions.  I don't know if these are supposed to be green onions or very crowded onions that volunteered...but I have a bunch of them.   I also have some garlic that must be volunteer as well.  It's a nice surprise however they got there.

This is what the garden looked like a month ago.  Lettuce, carrots, and jalapenos in the greenhouse bed.

wimpy broccoli.  It just doesn't grow as well as in Eureka.  I think it prefers to thrive in the coastal temperate region much more than here.

This is the potato bed.  It looks totally different now.  They are growing so fast you can just about see the leaves grow.  We think we might get two crops out of this bed this summer.

The strawberry bed has taken over their part of the garden.  We have strawberries already!  well they are green right now...but they are getting big!  Hopefully we can stay ahead of the critters and get to eat them.

CC and Q wanted to have their own corner of the garden.  CC is growing a variety of things.  Q lost interest when she had to pull weeds.  So now it's my zucchini bed! 

oops!  this isn't from the veggie garden.  This is from one of my flower beds.  Rather than try to delete it and lose my whole post (as I've done previously) I'll leave it.

If it's not raining tomorrow, I will take pictures of the garden after a month.  It is totally different now!

WSU Master Gardeners

It's March and although there is still too much snow covering my gardens to even turn the soil yet, this is traditionally the time of the year when I get things going.  I start seedlings inside in the laundry room, by the time they sprout, it's usually warm enough to move them to the greenhouse window in the kitchen.  Then when they are too big for the window, it's time to go outside.

This year the garden might not be ready for transplanting when I need it to be.  U will have to delay the whole process a while.  As I mentioned the other day, the locals told us don't plant till the snow is off Mt. Spokane....well that's gonna be awhile!  But I still pulled out my little gardening journal and just took a peek at what I could be doing and what I've done in years past.

So since I can't do what is in my gardening journal, I thought I'd share my gardening journal and my favorite Inland Northwest gardening resource.  Everyone who loves to garden and hasn't been doing it in the Inland Northwest during the last 50 years may be interested in owning this particular journal as well.  It's called:  Garden Journal, For the Inland Northwest Gardener.  It's produced by the WSU Master Gardeners in Spokane County.  They are an awesome resource for anyone trying to grow even a single plant.  I've included the link to their website.

The WSU Master Gardener Center is open March Through October.  You can email or phone (509-477-2181)them with your questions.  If you have a question November through February, you can still email them it's just that they answer questions only on a weekly basis.

The other cool thing are their gardening classes they offer. Current and upcoming topics this year include "Beginning Gardening", "Grow Your Own Food," "Gardening with Ornamentals," and "Specialty Landscaping."  I'll be posting them on the SpokaneMama Event Calendar, so be sure to check there for more details.

Well, I'm heading back to read and dream about what I hope to be doing in just a few more weeks....

Puxsatawney Phil is NOT My Friend!

I don't usually put much weight on a rodent forecasting weather, but he's historically more reliable than the weather people we have locally!  In case you haven't already heard, the rotund rodent Phil says we are going to have 6 more weeks of winter.  If that means 6 more weeks of snow...I'm going to have awesome arms by summer with all the shoveling!  And I will probably lose the battle of "no honey, we don't have enough snow here to warrant purchasing a snowblower."

I wonder what Phil knows about Global Warming?  Do you think Phil was one of the many sources that Al Gore ignored when he came up with his prophesy of global warming.  Phil just obviously doesn't own a copy of Al's book, An Inconvenient Truth.  And although he appears to have a pretty posh spread that he lives in, I'm sure he doesn't have a tv to watch the Gore Documentary either.

Here is Phil's official website:  www.groundhog.org

Winterizing the back yard

I was too busy to get to my computer this morning.  I feel like a kid who hasn't turned in an assignment.  Soccer and winterizing the yard were on the menu for today.

Two girls and two games across town.  Neither team was victorius today.  But they both played a good game.  CC is playing with a buckle fracture in her foot, no cast but she is on a no p.e. and light soccer workout regimen (actually the doctor would probably say no soccer--but we won't tell...there are only 2 weeks left in the season.)

So the afternoon was:

• picking up the waste piles from all the trimming of bushes and trees
• cleaning out the chicken coop (they are up to 3 eggs a day now most days)
• stacking the two cords of wood that were delivered yesterday
• rototilling the vegetable garden
• mowing the lawn for the last time
• putting away the 3 miles of hoses
• stacking the lawn furniture
• blowing out the sprinkler system

Nothing like a simple Saturday afternoon!?

Quote of the week from my husband:  "How did we ever live without a shop?"

I don't know, but good thing we have one so he has somewhere to park his truck in the winter. My car is in the garage!  Finders keepers! Neener neener!

Last of the summer

It was not the best year for my garden.

Strike one:  We spent more time away from home than at home this summer.

Strike two:  The summer 100 degree heat wave hit in July rather than August this year.

Strike three:  The deer kept figuring out how to take down my fence!

Well there is always next summer.  I've already laid out plans for the summer 2008 garden!  Including some expansion plans!

But here are the last of the tomatoes.....Salsa sounds good this weekend!

Flowers...I love 'em!

Flowers are a lot like people....(I'm sure someone else famous said that first, but I agree)

 

Some have perfect posture

Some are bashful

Then there are the diamonds in the rough

Those with natural everyday beauty

The ones that are a little rough around the edges

The ones that are simply elegant

Then there are those that just attract attention

And the ones that like to be lost in a crowd

What kind of flower are you?