The end of my vacation week is drawing near :( . The weather over the last two days was kind of crappy, but today is a beautiful spring day. Over the last two days I took care of my seedlings inside and did some other stuff around the house, but today I'm back outside getting some garden work done in the backyard.

So far I have prepared the soil in 4 of the 5 beds, cleaned the herb bed, laid down some more landscape fabric (and put some rocks down too but I only have a few bags right now), and leveled a small hill that was in the middle of the yard. Whew!

Right now I'm just taking a short break but I will be heading out to do a little bit more. I have a few plants that we picked up at Primex this week that need to go into some pots on the porch. Hopefully I'll take a few more pictures soon too.

Yesterday I finished up cleaning in the front yard. I cleaned up the main yard: trimmed the plants, pruned the bushes, picked up dead leaves, cut back ivy, and mulched a lot. I also got around to cleaning out the herb bed in the back yard.

I also took some new pictures of the cleaned out beds and my blooming plants. Check them out!

Don't worry that it now looks so barren in the front yard. That will quickly change. Every year there is a war between the gout weed, ivy, and the variegated strawberry vine that lives out there. I simply mulched over most of them, but after a good rain the mulch will fall below the ivy and hopefully block out some of the gout weed. But I have long given up on getting rid of that. I just hope that the mulch helps keep some of it at bay until the tree comes back and shades over the whole yard.

I'm now on my official week off from work to try to get some gardening done. I take off this week every year since I'm off from school as well. So I've been working on cleaning up the front beds and yard, and I'm starting to get the backyard ready as well.

In the front, I planted some more pots with English daisies, marigolds, and alyssum. I'm also trying some seeds on the porch. I know it is probably too early but I just threw some seeds in pots to see if they will make it. I planted a pot each of snapdragons, zinnias, nasturtiums, and cat nip (in a hanging pot of course!). I also just finished cleaning out the front bed by the sidewalk. Whew.

In the back yard, I've started to cut down some weeds that I let get way too large last year. I'm also starting to lay down more of the weed block paper for the paths. I've bought 10 bags of rocks so far over the last few days and still need tons (probably literally) more. I picked up some cool galvanized steel planters from Ikea and I've planted three of them now all with lettuce. One has a mesclun mix, one is the "Drunken Frizzy Headed Woman" lettuce, and the other is a head type that my friend Bernie gave me last year to try. It has been grown in his family for generations and it is very tasty.

I picked up a PH meeter at Home Depot so I can test the beds in the back. I had a mix-it-yourself type kit last year but I could not find it. Hopefully this thing works well - it would be a lot easer to use that dissolving those pills in containers and mixing it up with dirt.

Finally, some of my seeds are starting to sprout (Check out the pics below!). They are mostly my tomatoes and tomatillos, but I have a photo of my cabbage that is starting as well.

I stopped up at my parents house last night and picked up my Jung's order. So tonight I planted:

- Mr. Stripy Tomato
- Black Brandywine Tomato
- Tumbler Hybrid Tomato
- Red Peter Peppers
- Cabbage Babies Triplet Mix

There has not yet been activity from the seeds I planted before, but that was only on Monday so they still need a few days. Did I mention I was anxious?

I planted the first batch of seeds last night. I started:

- Autopick Peppers
- Pineapple Tomatillos
- Purple Tomatoes
- Gigante Tomatillos
- Little Mama Roma Tomatoes
- Black Cherry Tomatoes
- Rainbow Peppers

I still have lots more to plant, but I haven't received all of my seeds yet. My largest order, which is from Jungs, is at my parents house (I ship large orders there since someone is always home to accept the delivery) and that has a few more peppers, tomatoes, shallots, and my potatoes as well. So by next week all of my seeds will be planted!.

This time around I planted my seeds using the instant Jiffy Pots. I bought one of those 25 cell trays with the peat pellets (or whatever they are called) in them. Hopefully they well work OK. I am a bit concerned because they seem really wet and waterlogged, but hopefully it won't hurt the seeds or get moldy or anything.

Tonight I'm hoping to get one of my planters that I bought at Ikea planted with some lettuce seeds. I bought two rectangular silver metal planters, about 8inx30in each. I figure they will be good for some extra lettuce. Um, I can't wait to have some fresh lettuce from the garden. Yum!

Yesterday I got around to planting some of the platers on our porch with some pansies. We picked up a couple of flats of pansies from Produce Junction (only $3.50 a flat - 18 plants each). Gotta love Produce Junction. We were hoping to get some snapdragons as well, but they did not have any. I think that they did at one point (I saw a snapdragon flower laying in the parking lot) but they must of sold out.

Anyways, I planted some of the pots that are on our steps and I planted the copper planter that we have just underneath the front window on the porch - all with pansies. It is starting to look good. I also finally got around to replacing all of the dead light bulbs in our Chinese lanterns that we have around the porch. And resetting the timer as well since we lost power this week and that resets the timer.

Took some pictures too. Below is my favorite picture from yesterday - it has become my new background on my laptop. We have about 2 dozen or so crocuses popping up in our front yard. It is a bit hard to tell in the pictures since I still need to pick up all of the dead leaves, but they are poking their little heads through the leaves.

Unfortunately I didn't get to starting my seeds yet as I was hoping. Maybe there will be some time for that today. We'll see.

This week I did my first work in the front garden this year (I'm just catching up since I just setup the blog today). I cleaned off the front porch really well to get it ready. I trimmed all of the plants in the planters (I'll re-pot them later when I have some new plants). But some stuff in the planters/pots is coming back (but then we had such a mild winter it's expected). It looks like my Zulu Prince daisy may be coming back, as well as some of my chrysanthemums (I had green and purple ones last year). I'll have to wait and see to be sure but it looks promising.

I also got to clean out the bed that is just below the porch and mulch it. I finally cut back the butterfly bush, only about 4 months too late. But it should be OK. I also pulled out all the dead leaves, bee balm, and such. The bee balm is coming back. The jasmine is looking great and it is taking on such a cool shape. But it is getting onto the pathway so I may have to go all bonsai on it to make it change directions. Hehe.

There are lots of bulbs coming up too - hyacinths, daffodils, and other things. And speaking of other things so is the gout weed. Ugh. Oh well, I'm just trying to live with it because there is no way I'm going to try to get rid of it. Getting rid of the bamboo in the front last year was enough of a task, and small in comparison.

I also cleaned up the front bed by the sidewalk a little too. I just pulled out the dead zinnias, cut back some of the grasses, dead ivy, etc. Not too much. I'll take some pictures over the weekend hopefully. I'm going to be planting some seeds this weekend too. I hope its not too late! (I don't really think it is - I just started way too early last year and I'm getting anxious.)

Welcome to my new blog. I've always had the intention of keeping a journal of my garden. So why not get all Web 2.0 on it and put it up here on these interwebs. Hopefully I'll actually stick with it and post regularly and not give up in a week. We'll see.

I've added all of my photos of my garden from 2004 to last year in the Image Gallery. Last year I really slacked on the pictures, but I am going to make up for it this year. Really.

So for technical info about the site (since I'm a techie by day): Running Drupal 5.7 with a slightly modified Dreamy theme. I may get rid of that feather, but it works for me now.