Today I got quite sweaty and dirty cleaning up the "plant nursery" part of the basement. Since it only gets used as a plant nursery for a few months of the year, it tends to get cluttered up with stuff the rest of the year. I also went thru my seed box and found seeds as old as 2008. I guess I haven't cleaned that out for awhile either.

The table is now cleared off and I'm ready to start my peppers! I'm holding myself in check and not starting too many because we are rebuilding our raised beds and I won't have as much space as in the past. The new beds will hopefully be better designed now that we've had experience with the old ones for close to 20 years, but there will be fewer of them. The family is shrinking and so is my energy level for gardening!

Yesterday I spent time looking through seed catalogs. Burpee (my go-to in the past) has the nicest catalog--lots of big color photos, but the prices reflect the nice catalog. I took a chance and ordered some seeds from a new place, Seeds 'n Such, since their prices were much better. Their catalog isn't impressive, but the website is quite nice. I also ordered some stuff from Gurneys, which had a $25 off a $50 order, but then you pay $13 in shipping.

After placing my orders, I'm so ready to start working in the garden! Unfortunately, it's still covered with snow. I hope we actually have Spring this year. The last couple of years we've had a really late Spring and some of the early perennials never bloomed.

@Grandmama, I haven't purchased much from Burpee in recent years as I find them to be a bit on the pricey side. My favorites include Totally Tomatoes, Botanical Interests, R. H. Shumway, and my favorite, Territorial Seed Company. All would be happy to send you a free catalog if you want to sign up for one.

SOOOOOO.... I repotted my tomatoes this week as they were out of control. I ended up with 67 pots!!!!!! And I hate to admit this but a small handful of those had to be doubled up because I ran out of peat pots and I didn't want to go buy more. I have probably 75ish tomato plants. Anyone want a tomato plant?

This week is spring break for my son, and I was hoping to take the time to get up to the in-law's farm to borrow their tiller. But we've been so busy, we haven't had a chance yet! Hoping to grab it tomorrow, till really fast, and then return it on Saturday when we're up there anyways for a b-day party. I'd just grab it on Saturday in the first place except we're expecting a fair bit of rain early next week and I want to get the garden tilled before then. After that I can start plugging my onions in, which arrived last week. Also need my potatoes to arrive. Can't believe they're not here yet.

That's a lot of tomato plants, fantasia kitty! You must have a huge garden.

Up here in the far north, I just started my tomatoes today. The peppers that I started 2 weeks ago are up and flourishing--yay! I also started several flower seeds on Saturday. I've had mixed success with starting flowers (annuals) in the past, so time will tell if they sprout or not.

I'm still waiting for all the snow to melt. . .

Ok. So for fathers day this year (I am getting it early) we are making above ground garden beds. I plan to plant green peppers, jalapenos, several types of tomatoes, peas, cucumbers and sweet potatos. I am also getting a black berry bush and mint, and rhubarb. I am very excited and hope it all grows!!! I will let you all know!

Well, the snow was almost gone and I have some little lettuce plants growing in a pot on the deck (winter sowing), but they are now inside since not only has it been snowing the past 3 days, the lows overnight have been way too low! I'm very disappointed to start April with snow.

I've started eggplant seeds today, in a few of the peat pots I got from my sister for Christmas. End of this week I'll be starting seeds for brussel sprouts, beets, salad greens, broccoli, snapdragons, herbs(sage and thyme), and ground cherries.

Botanical Interests and Territorial Seed are good sources, I'll second that!

End of this week I'll be starting seeds for brussel sprouts, beets, salad greens, broccoli, snapdragons, herbs(sage and thyme), and ground cherries.

Are you starting the beets inside? Do you have good success with transplanting them to the garden?

Out of curiosity, what are ground cherries?

The beet seeds go in the ground outside. Ground cherries are not much different from tomatillos.

I believe we have finally had our last hard freeze. That means it's time to get some of my billions of tomatoes in the ground! But as I'm planting the majority of them at my in-laws' farm, I'll have to find a good block of time when the weather cooperates to get up there and stick 'em in.

No, Grandmama, I do NOT have much room at my house. And last year I had a major issue with blister beetles eating my plants. My husband's solution was to shake the plant to get them to drop off and then mow over them. That helped somewhat, but I'm actually thinking of not planting ANY tomatoes here at all this year as I'd like to break their growth cycle.

My kids have been asking about carrots and green beans, so maybe I'll shoot for those instead and come up with some creative ways to keep the vermin from eating them.

And last year I had a major issue with blister beetles eating my plants. My husband's solution was to shake the plant to get them to drop off and then mow over them. That helped somewhat, but I'm actually thinking of not planting ANY tomatoes here at all this year as I'd like to break their growth cycle.

I've always rotated where my tomatoes are planted to keep any disease issues from overwintering, but I've never dealt with blister beetles, thankfully. I have had squirrels eat my tomatoes during drought conditions. I wouldn't mind if they just ate one completely, but no, they have to take bites out here and there.

The snow is almost all melted now, so I hope to get some yard work done this week. I don't think anything will actually go in the garden until May.

Started more seeds today(indoors of course). And I thought I had started sage earlier, but it was basil, I started the sage today, oh well. Tomatoes, corn, bell peppers, and a decorative eggplant variety called pumpkin-on-a-stick. Tomorrow is carrots and more lettuce, plus weeding out my strawberries and rhubarb and repotting a cactus and transplanting the aloe(it's got babies that are getting big and need their own pots). Grateful my sister gave me a package of 100 peat pots for Christmas.

This is going to be an interesting gardening year for me. Things are so lopsided with the plants I usually like to grow. As I mentioned before, my tomatoes this year were out of control. I couldn't find anyone to give them to, so most of them ended up at the in-law's farm and my poor m-i-l is trying to find homes for the remaining few. In addition to that, my sister dropped another handful off at my house today as she's also out of room. My mom is also over-tomatoed and trying to get rid of them. I always hate throwing healthy plants out, but this year....

On the flip side (and I may have also mentioned this), my onions were almost completely kerboshed by the constant hard freezes this spring. I think my garden has maybe... 8 that survived? And none of them survived at the farm. Onions are probably the number one plant I use throughout the year, so I'm sad that I lost almost all of them.

And then there are sweet potatoes. My box arrived over the weekened and I opened them, and to my complete and surprise, found over 100 plants. Holy moly!! I have room for four at most in my backyard garden. So I posted on FB about it and within 8 hours, they were all spoken for. (I reserved three for myself.)

Anyways, I think I'm still going to attempt to plant a pumpkin plant and throw some carrot seed into the same rows as the onions where the onions died, just to fill in space. Other than that, my vegetable garden is done.

On the flower end of things, I've been slowly filling in my "fairy garden" which is really a potted garden so far and my front flower bed needs a lot of love. I worked on it a bit over the weekend, but it needs quite a few things put in as it's a lot of blank space right now. I bought two lantana, my very favorite flower now, and I have several columbine flowers and coleus to help fill in. Still needs some more somethings.

I'm sure you'll figure it out, fantasia

My corn, tomatoes, lettuces, and sage/thyme are sprouting. I'm hoping the snapdragons are as well and it's not a weed from the compost soil I used. Today I'm starting seeds for sunflowers and watermelon and potting one of the walking onions for the women's annual plant exchange and luncheon at our church(it's this Saturday). Neighbor also gave us some baby apple trees. Storm system is moving in, I better go hurry up and get the walking onion potted now before it hits.