Sunday, May 9, 2010

Its Gardening Time!

It’s gardening time, sort of.

Some of these plants are getting very tall. I guess I should have waited a few weeks before planting the seeds.

My little tomatoe seeds were planted about 3 weeks too early. What was I thinking? I guess that’s the point, the weather was so nice in April that I went crazy and started planting. Look at my babies, all 5 different varieties of them. There are “Juliet”, “Bobcat”, “Beefsteak”, “Tiny Tim” and “Sweet Millions” in there. I do end up giving away a lot of the extras to our other gardening friends because there’s no way we are planting all these tomatoes! I always start extra and transplant the cream of the crop.

The Potting Shed is, surprisingly, a great place to transplant seedlings. I can hardly wait until the plumbing is re-connected  for the summer!

You can also see how thrifty I am by saving my yoghurt containers and salad tubs. These work great for this task because you start your seeds in a small windowsill cultivator and then transplant to the yoghurt containers as the plants grow. This way when you are ready for planting you just push the bottom of the yoghurt container and out comes your plant, roots intact, ready to go into the garden or a bigger pot. Save the containers for next year or a second round of planting.

Some of the tomatoes we started last month. Boy, that’s a lot of tomatoes!

Here you can see some of recycled planters, yoghurt tubs and slald boxes.

These Tiny Tim tomatoes have just been transplanted into the yoghurt containers.

Yes, there are definitely way too many tomatoes but you know how it is when you get to the seed store and start reading package labels. They all sound interesting so let’s plant some of each!

Re-cycling in action! We’re going to have to eat more yoghurt!

The salad trays are really cool because they work like mini greenhouses if you close down the lids. That makes for perfect conditions for my babies.

I have also started some pumpkins. In the one picture you can just see them starting to pop up, so I guess the container lid will have to come off. But it really did its job and no worrying about water leaking because there are no holes in the containers that would allow water to leak all over my beautiful hardwood floors.

This picture may be labeled as Sunflower Babies but they are actually pumpkins! Silly Hubby!

Next, I’m going to start my cucumbers, bottle gourds, scarlet runner beans, sunflowers and sweet peas. I find that the birds will eat my sunflower seed if I plant it directly in the ground so that is why I start them indoors now. Also as they grow I can space them where we want. The scarlet runners I put in last year were eaten right away by the slugs so I do the same thing and plant them indoors and then place them around our power pole when they have grown to about 4” or so. I always make sure I sprinkle slug bait (we use Safer’s) around the base of the plants to keep the slimy little buggars away.

If you’re going to try growing scarlet runners don’t plant them too early because they grow really fast. They might have even been the bean used in “Jack and the Beanstalk”. Last year the vines climbed all the way up the twenty feet of string we gave them and then started back down again when they couldn’t find any more support. They could easily have grown 40 feet if Hubby could have gotten the guide ropes that far up the pole!

These are the Scarlet Runner beans that we saved from last year.

Speaking of Hubby, he did the first grass cutting of the season. There were lots of dandelions to mow down, the lawn was almost more yellow than green.

My Tree Swallows have returned once again and they are debating over which house to rent, the “High Rise” one on the power pole or the “Duracell” one on the clothes line pole. It’s something like the “House Hunters” TV show; only I can’t show you inside shots. They both have hardwood floors and great curb appeal but which one did they choose? I’ll keep you up-dated as to which house they pick.

This is the High Rise house that the swallows are looking at this year. We’ve moved the flag since this was taken because it would cover the entrance hole in some instances. If you look close you can just make out the Scarlet Runner vines climbing up their strings.

Here are the swallows last year sitting on the clothesline and checking out the Duracell House – the copper top one – get it?

This is from a couple of years ago. Momma swallow is buzzing around the nest trying to get her children to come out for some flight training!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures of my happy plants and some of last year’s garden. Oh, and don’t forget to get your hummingbird feeders out and get them ready for these tiny jewels, they should be arriving shortly.

Some of the tomatoes in last years garden.

The bottle gourds went nuts last year. They sure did like the obelisks.

5 comments:

Nakamuras on Saipan said...

GREAT pictures of your last year's garden and this year's seedlings....COOL! I get all excited thinking about moving to Japan and being able to garden once we do. We grew up with a huge garden and so I miss it a lot. Really enjoyed your pictures and I got some great ideas too!!

The Witch said...

Our garden is our shared passion here. We spend an awful lot of time talking, planning, tending and enjoying it. I think that the garden has started to define the passage of time for us. The years are marked by the quality of produce we grow.

Do you have a garden on Saipan? If not, is it a matter of space or time?

Suz said...

What a delightful garden you have..truly beautiful to see
and you are so organized..I love the cows and hail bales in your opening header....just to gaze at them is peace for me

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

I missed this post last week, so I'm just catching up on your blog. What a lovely and beautiful garden you had last year!! You are also certainly off to a good start to this one too!! Your seedlings look great and I never thought of using the salad containers as a type of greenhouse for them. THANKS for the good idea!!

Canadian Saver said...

you can tell that you're an engineer... the garden is just perfectly staked!!

This year's crop is looking great already!!!