Getting my hands dirty

Welcome to the first decent weekend we've had since last October! and what do we do on decent weekends?

We work in our gardens! Introducing Garden 2010 Update 1!!

I turned the garden! Since last fall when I put the garden to bed, its been covered with  the dirt from the flower pots in the front  and some store bought dirt and about 36 inches of leaf cover. Well, nap time is over!  and its time to get back to work.

After I turned the garden, I added some low-grade fertilizer and turned it over again. I was a little disappointed that the leaves had not rotted more (as per everything I had read online and in my gardening books!) I had expected by this time that they leaves would have obediently turned into really nice mulch. Not so much. The dirt under the leaves did look nice and dark though and it was very loose and easy to work with. I'm thinking its going to need another turning probably the middle of March and then some more  prep work in April before my plants arrive.

You will notice the brocs are still chugging along.

I have been terribly negligent of them. I look at them trough the window periodically and wonder how they are doing out there. I took a look at them and they look all right-ish, I don't think they are terribly happy. I should have covered them when it snowed.

Those little broc flowers are cute but I think that's what's they call "buttoning" and it means they are stressing. I'm going to hope that it doesn't count for my plants. The other two remaining plants also have tiny buttons formed. I don't think I'm going to be planting more brocs in the spring. It so much easier to just buy the damned things.

While I was in a garden frame of mind I bought a DIY seed starter kit. Alphagal got some very good results from them last year so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and get a tray for myself, after I got back from the store, I looked  at my seeds I am going to get at least one more tray maybe two... , I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have to go a different route with my bean plants though because I think the seeds are just too big for the teeny start-ups that the kit comes with. I saw another product while I was at the store that I think will be better suited and it was cheaper. The flowers and the luffas, however are going to love the starter kits though.

With the starter kits I'll be able to get more seeds germinated then when I just planted them raw in the ground and hoped for the best. I might even  get more seeds... But, more seeds equal more plants and I  can't just run out and get more room. I'm going to have think creatively about alternate garden space and my fist thoughts are about container gardening. I do have some sunny spaces that  might work with containers, but its a question of getting them watered and keeping them watered and that is going to be the real issue I am going to have to figure out. And soon.

 Last year, I had the frankenhose and I loved it but I last year I also limited my veggie gardening to the garden and thanks to frankenhose, I was able to go on vacation and everything was fine. and  I'm afraid that if I expand too much I'm not going to be able to properly take care of any of it.