Gardening Time

With the unusual weather, its' hard to knwo when to start with which vegetables but we have our greenhouse this spring so we're hoping that will help smooth over any irregularities to come in the weather. We've gathered every small pot and starter ot and wide plastic trey that can served as a watering trey and are trying a bit over everything,

including some dwarf trees that came in the mail (apricot and tangerines or something, I think). The only tree we've had any luck with to date is bay leaf, and kafir lime (the leaves are the lime flavor source for many Asian dishes); no actual limes, yet, though. We're also trying to get some flowring trees to becme bonsai trees without really knowing what we are doing. We killed several plants (upstarts form the yard, mostly, or free tiny starters) but a few have leaves coming back in the smaller size they are supposed to have as bonsais, so I figure we must have finally gotten the hang of it.

For vegetables, it's beans, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, beets, mescalin, cantalope (musk melon), and pie pumpkins, and spaghetti squash (yes, the pots are going to have to come out of the green house this summer if only because the vines will make it impossible to move inside the little greenhouse, assuming they survive our imperfect skills with annuals). Sunflowers are most of the flowers and I think we picked up some sort of summer bulb. A few things might make into the ground but most will get moved into bigger pots because the plantable areas of the yard are all shaded.

I don't know if we'll get enough out of the many plants to be worth the cost of the seends, but the effort required is more pleasant exercise and more strenuous (a good thing) than walking so I figure it's worth it for that even if we don't get a single melon or bean out of the deal.

Cook's challenge: grow something for the kitchen. Oregano is about the easiest herb: try it in a pot on a window sill.