Cherry tomatoes that is. The first pick of the year, straight out of my own garden. So delicious indeed, although Parker won’t even try one. I think the squishy consistency is a bit of a turn off for him. Maybe next year he’ll know what’s good for him. 

Featured in my beautiful new mug that was a very special gift for when I house-sat a few weeks ago. Love it! Have definitely been toying with the idea of having coffee again.

I am proud to report that my seed starting success rate has been fantastic. 

Herbs include: cilantro, basil, as well as, lemon basil, dill, oregano, thyme, savory, italian parsley, and sage.

Vegetables: broccoli, 4 types of tomatoes, 7 types of peppers, 3 types of lettuce, cucumber, and lemon cucumber.

Flowers: way too many to list, but to name a few: lupin, red hot pokers, hollyhock, purple and white gayfeathers. 

Of course I felt compelled to share a few pictures. 

See related post ”Tender Seedlings”

I am excited to announce that I have started some of my seeds for this season’s garden. After weeks of waiting for them, and literally weeks, because I placed my order from Swallowtail Garden Seeds on February 7th and received them March 6th. Swallowtail is based out of California, and I originally found them months ago when searching for flower seeds and I found their website to be well laid out, their prices fair, and everything I was looking for. I ordered flower seeds with a few vegetable seeds back in September. When the time came to figure out what else I would need for the garden I went right back to them for my second order. With a confirmation email sent to me on February 14th I started to wonder why they hadn’t come in the mail a week later. So I went to the USPS link for my package to discover that it had left Denver on February 20th. “Great!” I thought, they will be here soon enough. They still hadn’t come a week later. So back to the USPS link to discover my package was in Springfield, MA. on February 28th. Wait, what? Um, Massachusetts is nowhere near Colorado last time I checked. Odd. So I called Swallowtail and the woman put me on hold for what felt like forever. When she finally gets back on the phone she says “Hello Jesska, I am going to have to take a look at what is going on here with your package because what the USPS website is telling me doesn’t make any sense.” To which I reply “You mean because it’s in Massachusetts?” Anyway, all time aside, they are here now, and quite a few of them have made it into their warm and cozy germination beds. Lets cross our fingers and hope for the best!

Justin came home with a special surprise gift for me the other day. Along with the tiny toads we have found lately in our backyard,                                                                                      here is one of my own to add.

As a child I was lucky to have grown up with an enormous vegetable garden which saved us from ever eating canned or frozen vegetables from the grocery store. Living on 100 acres gave us plenty of room for flower and vegetable gardens. I suppose it’s no surprise that I am gardening for myself again. Other than a previous year in Vermont, I haven’t had any sort of garden until now.

Along with our complete and beautiful landscape I am excited to say that we have our very own 300 square foot patch of “garden glory”. This year will be a bit of an experiment since I’ve never grown anything in Colorado before. Two weeks ago we planted peas, tomatoes, peppers, beans, carrots, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, onions and a list of herbs.

Sadly our soil here is a lovely clay that bakes to a crisp in the summer sun. Not only is it hard to dig and plant in, it isn’t a very promising bed of nutrients. So we’ve taken the plunge into composting. It’s nice to know that we won’t be throwing away our valuable food scraps anymore and we will have rich soil to add to the garden as well as the lawn. I wanted to share some pictures of what we have started and hopefully there will be beautiful vegetable shots to come.