Taking Root

Almost all of the plants that are now outside have taken root and are thriving. The tulips are blooming, the eight month old lettuce is growing fast, and the chard is hardening and getting deeper in color.

Julia and I had a HUGE salad last night using nothing but our own lettuce. Five different kinds.

Notice the gigantic heart shaped mound on the left side of the front garden.

New Starters

Started more crops two days ago. I used an egg carton that we had around, poking holes in the bottom and using the lid as a water catcher. Twelve cells in all I planted: snapdragons (2), basil, R.G. double cosmos rose bon bon, nigella blue love in a mist, morning glory, arugula, lucullus chard, forellenschluss, bright lights swiss chard, aji amarillo pepper, and a yellow pear tomato.

I also planted twelve pots that are about 2 x 2 x 4. I planted four of the spitfire nastys (experimenting with clipping part of the seed in two (I will go in further detail about this later for the GROW project), four more chard, 2 more snaps, 1 cilantro, and one violet wave kale.

This brings me up to 50 cells/pots/containers of plants. All strategically located on the window sill.

Transplant

Did a little transplanting this morning. The chard and lettuce are looking good in their new homes. The anise looks a lot better too. We need to pinch off the tops so that it doesn't get too leggy.





Julia picked up a nice wooden box (originally for 125 lbs of kiwis) that is perfect for a raised bed. It is about 2 feet by 3 feet by 1 foot (depth). We still have left over windows from the materials I gathered when I was making the cold frame. I think one of the extra windows will fit perfectly on top. If we use it for cold tolerant plants like lettuce and chard, I think I will use the window as a top but not secure it onto the box so that it can easily be taken off. Also, our backyard has some trees and the house blocks the sun there as well. When it gets too hot, we could move this kiwi box to the back yard so that the lettuce can live in partial shade.



I read somewhere that chard is a good container crop. This made me start to think... I am too lazy (and I don't want to mess up too much of the yard) to expand the garden in the front yard. The wave and shark fin are fine. However, container growing is a great way for me to increase my gardening space. We have a nice flagstone patio that we could literally fill with container plants if we felt like it. We could even line the 'wave' with containers. Perhaps this can act as a buffer between the dogs and the garden.

Julia did some work on our compost heap as well. This is located close to our backyard at the end of the lettuce patch.



On a side note, the Russian women's curling team is really hot.

Milk! and Valentine's Dinner

Our hearts they beet as one.






















Julia and I lowered our carbon footprint by buying premium (priced and quality) local milk from Longmont Dairy Farm. Every Monday (that's today!) at 6:30am, the company will deliver the milk to our front doorstep, left in a cooler. If we wanted to, we could order cream, eggs, and cheese from this dairy as well.

Oh, how tasty it is!

***

Because of work schedules, we had valentines dinner on Saturday. Yesterday, however, I cut back six (count 'em six!: green leaf, wild card, forellenschluss, 'rugy, hyper red rumble, merlot) kinds of lettuce. Just enough to make a small salad. I know it is nothing much; it is a sign of things to come.

For Valentine's Dinner:

-Our Daily Red organic California table wine
-Pomegranate Spritzers
-Beet Soup
-Grilled asparagus with a pomegranate cream sauce
-Ribs with NC style sauce (a la Pitmaster)
-Baked brie with a homemade red onion marmalade
-Cake - strawberry shortcake layers with fudge frosting and pomegranate soaked cake
-Homemade ice cream - vanilla bean custard with three different kinds of cookie dough marbled into tiny hearts

Needless to say, it was delicious.

Fence

I built a fence yesterday out of bamboo sticks and garden netting. It is a little difficult to see from this photo, but the netting is there. Time will tell if it holds up against the dogs. But, for the time being, it was a quick and cheap way to keep them out of the onion and garlic patch.

The squash plant is loving life in the sunny corner, growing huge leaves and budding. The lettuce and chard are doing well, too.

Even some of the basil is starting to come back (a la 2nd edition). No sign of the onions yet, but it is too early.