Planting the garden.

tomato plant.

We planted our vegetable garden yesterday. Finally! We've had our poor little vegetable plants sitting on the table on the deck for two weeks! (Or is it three?) I have to say...they look a lot happier in the ground.

We also, thanks to my helpful husband (who is getting into this whole garden thing), have a drip watering system installed. Each plant has its own little water spout...it's wonderful! No more hand watering. Well, except for the lettuce and the herbs and trees in pots. But that's fine...the majority of the watering will be done by timer.

We planted 10, yes, 10 tomato plants. Um...not sure what we were thinking. Actually, I do know what we were thinking...SALSA. We love homemade salsa. And we love it with fresh tomatoes and peppers from our garden. So there ya go.

Speaking of peppers...we planted six of them. Two jalapeno, two Anaheim, a purple bell pepper (because I love purple in the garden and do NOT like eggplant) and an heirloom purple hot pepper. It oughtta look pretty in the salsa. It says it's also good dried and made into mole for enchilada sauce. Sounds good!

Walla Walla onions...

We also planted one cucumber, because I'm really the only one who eats them...one zucchini plant (although I am going to plant a few more seeds as we all like zucchini...especially prepared this way) and one Blue Hubbard squash...because they're a gray blue, I think they'll look pretty in the garden, and I wanted to try something new.

For the first time, we are going to try our hand at growing onions. I've never grown onions before...so I'm excited to see how it works out. I got Walla Walla onions. It's what they had at the garden center...and we sort of bought them on a whim so I hadn't done any research as to which ones would be best to grow. Eventually I'll have my act together (I hope) and be a more organized gardener. Eventually...

Until then...we garden on the edge. Seth used to call me the "loose canon mom on the edge"...maybe we can change that to the "loose canon gardener on the edge"!



purple garden gloves...thanks Mavis!



Today I'm going to get back out there and plant some seeds...green beans, lettuce and cantaloupe. Oh...and a few more zucchini seeds and some sunflowers! I got two varieties...I hope they come up. Ian and I planted some right before the days and days of rain and none of them sprouted. (Or they sprouted but I didn't know it and the chickens found the sprouts before I could! I'll never know.)

I purchased some herbs yesterday...more sage, basil, parsley and thyme (quite possibly my favorite)...two varieties, English and creeping. We have a sage plant that survived from last year. It's not pretty...but it's alive. It grew out from under a pot somehow...so it's stem is really long and the actual growth is about a foot away from where it's rooted.

Like I said...it's not pretty. But it's alive. So...it stays.

It was a great day to get outside and plant. At the warmest point I think it was about 80-something degrees. But there was a breeze off and on so it kept it quite cool.

Not to mention, the pecan tree still hasn't been trimmed. And it provides more shade than we want. We're still waiting on PG&E to come by and trim the parts that are dangerously close to the power lines so we can get a tree trimmer in to prune the rest. Can't wait...it's shading a lot of our garden expansion. Sort of defeating the purpose, ya know?

Welp...better get a move on. I've got lots to do today. Gotta get those seeds planted, dust and vacuum, clean the bathroom, mop the kitchen floor and try and keep up with the laundry piles!

How was your weekend? Did you get any gardening done?