Waiting Period in the Garden of Eatin'.

I've experienced a stretch of mild frustration the past week or so with my gardening. The first is the cold and rain. Now, I know that it is April and that is what is supposed to happen. But the last week or so we have had about 3 inches of rain or more during the prime planting periods in early spring. Makes it hard to get in the garden. What I will say is thank goodness for the trench I dug out and filled with sand near the back of my garden. That trench did it's job beautifully. It held all of the excess rain water instead of letting it pool and flood the garden bed. And it also drained fairly quickly thanks to the couple inches of sand put at the bottom of the trench.

As of right now, I'm still waiting on any of my pepper seeds to sprout. I know what part of the problem is. It is not warm enough. Pepper seeds need the soil to be 70+ degrees to even think about sprouting and with the cold weather we have had, the seeds are not having it. I know the solution would be to buy a heating mat and I ALMOST did that at the beginning of the season. But they can be a little pricey and I wanted to save money and try my luck. I'm sure they will come up with the warmer weather and sun being out longer instead of being behind clouds. But as of right now I am a bit antsy about it. I'm also keeping a close eye on my peas, spinach, radish, and lettuce seeds I planted out last week. No sprouts that I've seen yet. Soon though. I hope!

One last frustration is my son's mobility. Now before you take that the wrong way, understand that I LOVE Jacks new found confidence and walking ability in that wispy "Oh my child is getting so big/he's no longer a baby" type of way. But when it is a nice afternoon and I want to bring him out back with me so he can play and I can get some gardening done, he has promptly crushed those hopes and dreams with his ability to take off towards the front of the house and road. Not that he runs to the road or has made an attempt to go in the road. He just wants to play in the front of the house because that is where the sidewalk is and the sidewalk is where he can walk and know that it takes him places. He is a busy guy with places to go and that people mover sidewalk thing is the place to be! It just doesn't lend itself to carefree gardening. I've tried blocking off his route to the front. I've tried distracting him with trucks, tools, and dirt. Not having it, Dad. Just counting down the days til we can use a vehicle big enough to go get a gate from Home Depot or some other hardware store. 

I attempted to add some videos of Jack running around but I'm not what you would call "good with technology" so I'm not sure if they will load properly or not. If they don't load and you do want to see them, leave me a message letting me know and I'll try to post them on my Facebook page.

In the meantime, I've been doing what I can to occupy my waiting period. I have planted Italian Heirloom tomatoes and Black Cherry tomatoes inside. Italian basil and Lime basil have both been started. I have also started a flat of 3 different kind of marigolds to put in the garden. Here is a picture of what all of that looks like.

I also took my Mini Red Purplette onion sprouts and planted them outside. Those were really challenging to transplant as they are so thin by design that they took extra work to secure in the ground without drooping over. Along with the transplants, I also seeded a whole bunch in a scattered pattern down the row that may need to be thinned later.

When it comes to onions, thinning them is the least painful because any part or stage of the onion can be used and is tasty! I also seeded another row of spinach in order to have a continual harvest. I'll be doing that with a lot of my early spring crops, including radish, lettuce, beets, carrots, and onions. I'm also looking to get my broccoli and cauliflower sprouts transplanted out in the next week. It's time. They are starting to out grow their containers and get a bit antsy. I can tell. Don't question it. My plants and I are in sync. Not to be confused with the early 2000's boy band N'sync. It's not like I'm going to be telling them Bye Bye Bye. They will just be right outside the house.

We also have a section of our yard that just got totally scorched from last years heat and drought. The grass was fried and never really fully recovered. So since it is already mostly dirt, Maggie and I have decided to just throw down a crap load of flower seeds and have a nice little flower garden out front. I even transplanted random bulbs that have started growing in the garden, out to line the walk way. I don't know what they are and I'm quite sure the relocation will fail epically so that I'll just have horrible brown plants laying on their sides in a testament to my failure to grow things along with my grass less lawn, despite my claim as an urban gardener. You know, so when people walk by all they see is a failed front yard and not the back yard with actual things growing. Anyway, the flower seeds I put down a few days ago are early flowers and other flower seeds will be added as the weather warms. The flowers currently on the ground and trying to grow include Snapdragons, Pansy's (Pansies?), a Flower Garden mix by American seed, and Alyssum which I grew last year rather prolifically. Here is a picture of the bare soil lawn before flowers sprouting (hopefully).

Until next time, happy growing and here is to hoping for some temps to stay in the 60's with minimal frost!