May 8th

I made jelly for the first time!

More specifically, redbud jelly. From this recipe. In hindsight, it's a bit sweet so I may find another recipe that uses less sugar.

Now that I've had my first canning project, I'm looking forward to doing more! It wasn't nearly as difficult and time consuming as I feared. I'm thinking strawberry jam.....

May 6th

After a freakish snow a few days ago, spring weather is finally back to stay (I hope). My garden is looking a bit more full with the perennials coming up and I finally have peas, carrots, lettuce, and onions in the ground.

I have a few strawberries in pots and before too long if my tomatoes end up getting big enough (there are only a few seedlings and those don't even have their true leaves yet, so I may end up having to buy tomatoes after all)

Later this week I'm heading off to my parents to help put in some more veggies in their garden. I'm looking forward to growing cucumbers, zucchini.... all sorts of sun lovers that I can't grow at my place. 

April 14th

My tulips have started blooming!

April 5

The weather has finally been staying warm regularly so I've been going a little crazy with outdoor projects. One of my good friends just moved into a new house, so I've been helping her with random things. We dug up some mimosa trees and lilac bushes out of my parents old house on Tuesday and planted them on Thursday (not to mention non-gardening activities, like tearing out her chimney!)

In my garden I've built a trellis for the sadly neglected clematis patch (they were attempting to grow on a single stick propped up against the wall and had amassed into a huge tangled clump), though since I don't know what kind of clematis it is, I don't really know how to prune it properly. I trimmed it up a bit and transplanted one that was totally in the wrong place. I can't wait to see what they look like so I can treat them better come next spring.

Today I planted my carrots in two containers; they're a rainbow mix from Cubits. I have some little round Parisian carrots I need to put someplace too. I also planted some lettuce in the ground.

Now onto some pictures! Here are just a few, there are more on my Flickr page if you are curious.

This is the clematis patch. I counted at least 6 different plants, and it's possible that bot 2 and 6 are multiple plants in the same bunch. Only time will tell!

These are some basil seedlings that I snagged at work after thinning a few flats. Shhhh......

My alyssum have kind of blown up! I hope they don't get out of control before they are big enough to separate.

Here is some coleus (top) and blue sweet woodruff ( bottom). I'm excited for them to get bigger!

Lastly, here is an update on my onions. They are getting pretty big! An inch or two for sure. They're going to go in the ground and maybe also at my parents place when they are ready. 

March 18th

I have a few more sprouts coming up in my winter sowing jugs.... the lettuce isn't doing much more than it was in my last post, but now I have alyssum, pansies, and some onion seedlings!

Alyssum

Onions!

Two little pansies.

I've started working at a local greenhouse part time and it's amazing how far ahead everything is there.... the pansies have been in bloom there for weeks! It would certainly be nice to have a little greenhouse to start things in.

Here's one more picture just for good measure of our new kitty cat! We've had him for two weeks now and he's fantastic.

Feb. 27

We've had quite a bit of snow here in Kansas over the last week or so, which has certainly dampened my winter sowing experiment a bit... before the snow my lettuce started to sprout, but it hasn't had enough heat to grow any further. Hopefully this snow storm counts as the lion of March (albeit a week early) and we'll get some lamb the next month.

My winter sowing milk jugs

Little lettuce sprouts!

I also started my part time job at the greenhouse again this week. It was awesome to go into a place where there were green plants; the pansies were even blooming.

Feb. 12

The best way to get back into a groove is just to go for it right? Well here goes blogging:

I took some pictures the other day of my garden, and I wanted to put it up so I can see a difference once everything starts growing again. So far it's just a few bulbs popping up, but since I didn't live here in the spring last year, I'm not sure what they are, so it's exciting!

I'm also experimenting with some seed starting this year with the winter sowing method. So far nothing has sprouted, but it's still a bit cold.... I'm planting some flowers and veggies, plus a few perennials.

Here you can see one side of the front garden and evidence of my winter sowing (milk jugs).

This is the south side and the only area to get any sun. The buckets will house tomatoes!

This area is pure shade, but I built a little bed so I hope I can grow a few flowers at least.

These guys are a couple of blueberries I got last fall, hopefully they'll get busy this summer.

Evidence of growth. I'm not sure what these are, daffodils maybe?