Digging Right in

As a first entry to a blog, I'm not really all that sure where to start. So I'm going to just dig right in. Hopefully, I'll improve with time and practice.

I started my first set of tomatoes several weeks ago with a pack of two-year-old yellow pear-shaped tomato seeds. More accurately, Ardis and I planted the seeds- which resulted in about 15 tomato seeds going into one little 4 inch pot. Serendipitously, the seeds did sprout beautifully. My excitement over germination developed into subsequent weeks filled with starting other varieties of tomatoes in a similar pattern. Obviously, one or two seeds in a single pot is not enough for a toddler. If all the plants that have sprouted, survive and produce, we will be up to our eyeballs in salsas, relishes, and freezer bags.  Yesterday, I separated that first miraculous set of tomato plants from one 4 inch pot into four 4 inch pots.  They seem to have weathered the change with ease.

I started several cucumber plants as well. It will be a few more weeks before the raised bed the cukes will be planted in will be ready. Last year, the cucumbers provided us with several nice sweet cucumbers for eating, but there were never enough at any one time for experimenting with pickle making.  I think that the soil in the bed needs a little love and affection (a.k.a. compost and aeration) before I put the seedlings in this year.

While the rain has not been terribly hard today, I have been using it as my excuse to avoid going out and thinning the radishes, carrots, and beets we have growing in the front beds. I won't be able to easily avoid the task for much longer. Tomorrow, I will finally venture out to thin the little beasts, plant the broccoli we got at Burson's yesterday, and finalize plans for what we will be planting where in our tiny front yard.