The fun begins aka No rest for the weary (or is that wicked?)

Peering at the ground where seeds have been planted and watching the changes as things grow larger is one of my favorite early spring activities.  Everything has been planted with the exception of lima beans, peppers and basil.  The peppers and basils are finally getting larger in their seedling cells, and I expect they'll be ready to transplant at the same time I plant the lima seeds - around the middle of this month.

Unfortunately, we're not getting any rain to speak of.  Fortunately, I have a water hydrant near the garden.  I have to drag a hose quite a distance to get to everything (including my rose and cut flower gardens), so thank goodness for the new light weight "pocket" type hoses.  This year, I found an even better deal than the cloth covered ones, because my dragging and pulling on them means even the toughest ones don't last more than a couple of years.

This stainless steel metal hose is as light weight as a pocket hose, and winds up neatly without kinking. 

You can get it from Amazon in several different lengths.  I got mine at Walmart.  Here's Amazon's picture of the construction:

So far, I am really liking it and expect I'll never buy another cloth covered one.

On the east half of the garden, beets are planted in the triangular center of this plot and mulched with grass clippings, with cabbages in the middle arc and peas in the outer arc (along with a few onions from last fall).

In an adjacent plot on the east end, lettuces are coming up nicely, and new rows have been seeded between the existing ones for a harvest succession.  The plot will look a lot nicer when the plants are larger.  The grass mulch keeps the ground from drying out as fast, and also prevents rain-splattered dirt in the plants.

Here's another view of the east end from the other side:

Peas in the outer arc, then cabbages, and beets planted in the triangle; that green plant on the right is red veined sorrel, aka bloody dock.  You might not be able to see them, but I planted shiso (Zi Su) in that plot with the sorrel.  It's purple, and still small, so hard to see in the picture.  I've never grown it before and have no idea what it tastes like.  I'll let you know.

And here's a third view with a triangle bed in the foreground into which I've planted all flowers: Queen Lime zinnias and marigolds.

The rhubarb looks great.  Unfortunately, the freezes in the first two weeks of April damaged the stalks, so much of it isn't harvestable, but it's growing new leaves rapidly.  The Egyptian walking onions in the centers of the two south side plots in the west end of the garden are getting quite large and may need to be tamed before the season is over.  One of those plots will take the peppers, and the other will take the basils.

I got tired of growing my tomatoes in their small pots, and it's so warm this week, I set them out into the garden today.  When I transplant tomatoes, I throw a handful of espsom salts (for the magnesium) and two handsful of composted manure into the planting hole, mix it up with the soil, and stuff the tomatoes down deep, up to their first true leaves.

Since tomatoes root anywhere along the stem, you can plant them deep into the ground without any harm.  In fact, you'll get growth benefits from more roots on your new plants if you do.  So, even if you find yourself with "leggy" tomato plants, just pull off some of the lower leaves and plant deep.  If the plants are extra leggy, pull off even more leaves and plant them lengthwise in a trench with only the top sticking out of the soil, instead of deeper into the ground.

This year I've planted my old favorite 'Missouri Pink Love Apple', 'Mr. Stripey' and 'Copia' (both striped herilooms), 'Carbon' (a "purple" variety), and 'Moskvich' (advertised to be early and to grow well in cool weather as well as warm.  By that advertisement I was expecting 'Moskvich' to be able to be planted earlier, so I started some seeds three weeks earlier than the other varieties.  They grew so slowly that they ended up being the same size as all the others anyway.  Hopefully, they will taste great and ripen early.

This is my first try for 'Copia', 'Carbon' and 'Moskvich'.  Baker Creek Seeds always sends some free samples when I order, and this year they sent tomato seeds of something called 'Black Vernissage'.  Some of the reviews were not so great, but I figured I'd try it anyway.  Not having any room for it in the garden proper, I planted 'Black Vernissage' on top of my compost pile.  It won't get the attention  those in the garden do, so I won't be able to blame it entirely if I don't care for it.  I gave a couple to the postmaster, so I'll have to remember to check with her this summer to see how she rates them.

I also planted two cherry tomato varieties this year.  A neighbor had some orange cherry tomatoes last year that were so sweet and delicious I collected seed to try to get the same.  Since she had a number of varieties of tomatoes planted nearby, it's possible that the seeds I got are crossed with something else, so I may be getting a surprise.  She didn't remember the name of the plant, so I selected seed of one called 'Sun Gold' that looked by the picture and the advertisement saying it's super sweet to be a possible match.  

My runner beans are up.  Hooray!  This is the first time I've grown them.  The idea is that they will grow over the top of the cucumbers and make pretty flowers on the garden "arch" entry.  It could end up being a jumbled mess.  

Now that I have a rose garden (since two years) and a cut flower garden (since last year), I have another whole garden expanse of fun and beautiful plants to talk about, even though they don't technically fit into this blog theme.  This year I added four new rose bushes to the rose garden that was supposed to only contain the five original ones.  I fretted over the older ones, worrying that they weren't coming back from this past frigid winter.  Much to my relief, they're coming along fabulously.  

The creeping blue phlox has decided to become a giant gorgeous pillow, and I've added several perennials into the mix: gaura, perovskia, lavender, and something that I have not been able to identify, and which was already on the grounds when I got here.  It's got a lovely spikey flower, and it spreads its seeds readily - maybe too readily.

The creeping orange thyme in the corner (foreground) is going to have to come out and be split up and spread around in the fall to make way for another rose.  I only have five more on my list of wants!  Yes, I know.  An original plan for a garden of five roses has gone awry.  Actually, the original plan was for one a year for five years.  Hahahahahaha.  Who thought that would happen?

I also have another new rose in the garden this year:  a compass rose.

Since I'm going to have so many roses, I decided to get some markers so I could remember who's who.  Or, rather, so I don't have to remember.

Fabulous foliage of pink gaura

The cut flower garden is looking good.  Who knows what it will look like when everything is mature?  It was quite tedious transplanting all those little seedlings:  Asters, Snapdragons, Delphiniums, Globe Amaranth, Toothache Plant, Lupine and 'Black Pearl' ornamental peppers.  I was sweating it out over the Baptisia that I planted last year, but they have finally come up and already have flower buds.  What I'm feeling might not come back is the butterfly milkweed and the lantana.  I shall be disappointed, but not crestfallen as I would have been had the Baptisia died.

Last year's one resprouted lupine, surrounded by new transplants.

I always like this time of year in the Hosta garden, when the ground is dark and damp and the leaves are brilliant greens, before the birds get in there and peck around in them and the wind drops little stems from the overhanging dogwood tree that pierce and shred them.  They start to look pretty sad by mid-summer.

'Rainforest Sunrise'

One of my absolute favorite things about spring: lilacs.  Does anything smell so heavenly?  Until I brought these in together recently, I didn't realize that the lilacs are the same color as the redbud flowers.

And so it begins...

View from the west end.