You Grow Girl™

Despite a return to cold greyness it is officially spring. I know this because the forsythia is out in full force. So are the hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and other flowering bulbs.

Not much is happening garden-wise around here. Well not as much as I'd expect at this time of year. The seedlings have all been transplanted to larger containers. Once again I have FAR more tomatoes and peppers than I can possibly grow, but the extras have already been claimed by friends. I planted some cucumber seeds and they are now producing their first set of true leaves. There is no room for basil. I don't have an inch of available space left so I'll have to wait until the tomatoes go out before starting a massive cultivation of basil. I'm planning to start hardening off the tomato seedlings soon so they'll be ready for May 24 planting but the weather isn't co-operating.

The weather has also fouled up any attempt to do work on the community plots and the side garden. The only gardening I've done recently has been out on the deck. So far I have prepped the planter boxes, planted some pansies (black and orange), arugula, purple rubin basil, 'Siam Queen' Thai basil, rosemary, and chocolate mint. Every Thursday I attend a local Farmer's Market and last week the woman who sells organic seeds and fertilizer had herb seedlings. My hands were full but I managed to crunch the 'Siam Queen' basil and some French lavender into my backpack. I also made a quick trip to the parking lot garden center where I purchased a butterfly bush (Buddleia), and some purple ruffles basil. I know I said I plan to grow basil from seed, but I wanted to buy a few plants so I'd have something happening in the meantime. This week I'm hoping to conserve some space to accomodate more plant purchases. The organic woman promised veggie seedlings thing week. Not that I need any more... This is why I never make solid garden plans. I'm too open to changing my plans the second I see something new that catches my fancy.

The local corner store/green grocer/garden centre has already begun stocking up on a huge selection of annuals, veggies and herbs. That place is the death of me or my wallet as I often pass it on my way to run errands to the post office and bank and I just can not physically resist stopping to see what they have... which inevitably leads to a purchase. The other day I bought an unusual salvia and the chocolate mint mentioned above (one for me and one for a friend). If you only have room for one mint, make it chocolate mint. That has got to be the best mint variety around. It smells like peppermint patties and has beautiful green and brown foliage.

As I mentioned the weather has been crap all week which is one of the obstacles preventing me from getting on my list of garden tasks. Once the weather improves my next big plan is to build a small fence to hopefully, once-and-for-all, keep dogs and humans from trampling on the side garden. I have collected from the curb a bundle of thick branches and a bundle of thin, green, possibly willow branches. The idea is to cut the thick branches down to a certain height and use them as supports that I will partially bury. Then I am going to weave the thin branches between them to form a nice, natural, and totally FREE fence. We'll see how it turns out. I've been planning this since last fall.

The bulbs I planted a few weeks back are coming up! They had a slow start because April was pretty dry. But so far May has basically been April weather and the rain has encouraged them to sprout. No flowers are seen yet but I think it's pretty exciting that they're doing anything at all since I bought them for about a buck a package and kept them in the fridge all winter long.