Good Day Sunshine!!!

I'm so proud to say I've risen early every morning this week and walked through the veggie and flower gardens. The snowpeas are producing like crazy although the vines that are turning out peas are tiny. This afternoon my neice Ally measured them and I was astonished to find the largest peas were 3" long and growing on vines only 15-18" when stretched. The pole beans will soon tower over the peas and leave them in the dust. I'm a thorough believer that peas should NOT be planted in enriched soil - all the seeds sown in "good dirt" are tall with few flowers and no pods. The ones planted in the clay are flourishing...

The tomatos and eggplants from Burpee are either not doing well or have disintigrated, but that may not be the grower's fault. I was so sick the days after I planted them and I tend to baby my new arrivals - can't say so much about the boys in the family. They water them, eventually....

Cannot wait to see the brussels sprouts start producing. I love the look of the plants - the color is gorgeous! The basil I seeded last week is finally raising it's little leaves. I can almost taste the pesto. I also think my second bed of greens will be large enough to cut soon, though I should spend the weekend transplanting. We'll see if that really happens...

The melons and pumpkins we planted in hills along my neighbor's fence are growing like gangbusters. These will be the kids favorites. I hope I've given them enough room to ramble.

Ally and Dylan enjoyed their teepee play area a lot this afternoon. They lugged pails and pails of water between the barrel and the sandbox, where Preston was "digging to China" AGAIN. They thought adding water would help them dig further. So cute. Honestly I would not be surprised if this was the bunch that figured out how to drill through the center of the earth :)

Aidan was such trouble today in the garden. Teasing, he fell asleep after being pushed in the stroller about ten feet. If every kid could be so difficult.

Here's to hoping Memorial Day weekend holds many quiet hours of weeding, picking and planting for this Flippin gardener.

Enjoying the first salad harvest of the season

It's been a day full of dirt-hauling, veggie planting, sledgehammer swinging, and thunderstorm dodging, but most of the planting beds are finally in!!!

The potatoes have already been hilled up twice, and today I added sages and basils to the thriving lettuce and potato beds.

The lettuce bed is producing mixed leaf lettuces, romaine, radishes, onions (I'm pulling the 2nd and 3rd in each row to use as green onions now), pansies (so yummy), brussels sprouts, carrots and marigolds (started from seed in glass canister greenhouses). Marigolds are the only item missing from our dinner salad - technically, we could've eaten them too. Even the carrot greens wound up in the mix. I have never enjoyed a salad more. However, the yummy beef and turkey burger with jack cheese was the icing on the cake!

I started the morning adding Columbines and Dianthus to the front garden in shades of plum and berry. Then I moved to the veggie garden and dug in the herbs: basil, pinapple sage (possibly my favorite plant of all time), cilantro, flat-leaf parsley, and dill. We had to finish the ground-level beds before I could plant the okra for Dylan. My son absolutely loves okra - pickled, pan-fried, sauteed, and fresh off the vine. We're going to interplant the okra with butternut squash and peppers. We dried the butternut squash seed from a squash we ate around Thanksgiving - it was so tasty! When he asked if we could plant it, I said, "why not? We can give it a try!" Thankfully those glass canister greenhouses are working like a charm. We have artichokes, delphiniums, more marigolds, dill, purple coneflowers, and a few more I can't remember ready to plant.

I've tried artichokes from seed for five years, and this is the first time I've had any grow to these heights. I've only successfully grown one delphinium from seed, but it was a beauty! Of course, it didn't survive that winter :(

My nephew and his family planted tomato seeds and wound up with a giant harvest, so we're excited to dig those in after a few weeks. I transplanted them with my neice yesterday, and they're doing great in their new pots. We've got a six-pack of cherry and another 6-pack of another species - no clue which!, but that's no matter. I cheated a bit and ordered a few tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers from Burpee.com. They're plants are always in excellent condition, and I'm excited for them to arrive in a few weeks. They're a few varieties I've never grown before, and I'm looking forward to trying a white eggplant.

Around lunchtime, my hubby, son, and I drove over to Camp's Plants in Mtn Home and picked up a second load of Super Dirt to top off all the lasagna garden beds. We made it home just in time to unload the dirt before the sky opened up and dumped on us. It felt nice digging in the warm dirt when it was just a sprinkle, but once the thunder started rolling, I felt a bit safer under cover.

It was such a perfect rain. I love the smell of wet dirt and grass! It stopped right at dinnertime, so I could put the burgers on the grill and still stay dry. The break in the rain also gave me some time to take photos this evening. (I'll be sure to post them tomorrow when the battery is recharged. I went a bit crazy with the camera.)

I have a feeling I will sleep very well tonight, as should my son who's exhausted himself out in the yard running back and forth between his teepee, swingset, the garden and sandbox. I hope it's a sign of things to come...