Today I'm heading 300 miles south to Pella, Iowa for their Tulip Festival. I know I will get jealous of how far ahead Spring is there compared with here. But that won't stop me from enjoying thousands of tulips blooming! (and also enjoying Dutch treats from street vendors--I'm getting hungry just thinking about it)

This week here has been rainy, so I hope that when I get back we will have some sunny weather so that I can get carrots, beets and shallots planted out in the garden. Beans too, if the soil is warm enough. It will be at least 2 or 3 more weeks before all the little plants that are currently under lights will go out in the garden.

I started cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, and watermelon seeds today. One of the nasturtiums has sprouted, and I think one of the Shasta daisies has as well. Trying to find my corn seed packet to grow my own for the chickens/ducks.

Enjoy those tulips Grandmama!

Kalta (and anyone else to whom this applies), do you eat your nasturtiums? I think I remember seeing that they're edible, but I only grew them one year for decoration.

I didn't the first year I was successful with them, because I was just so excited they bloom, but I plan to this year. Friend uses them as a salad extra. They're supposed to be a little peppery.

We finally bought a house, and the people before us liked to garden...and there is LOTS of awesome things coming up. Can not wait to see what it all is. At the college I work at I am off in the summer so I will be working at a green house, hoping to get a lot a more good stuff for the yard.

We had a significant amount of penny-sized hail come through two nights ago, riding the winds of a collapsed tornado. All of the plants that were against the north side of my house were absolutely striped of their leaves, which included my raspberries and strawberries. I know the plants will recover, but the strawberries in particular were loaded with blooms and I suspect that took out the first round of fruit for the season.

We had a significant amount of penny-sized hail come through two nights ago, riding the winds of a collapsed tornado. All of the plants that were against the north side of my house were absolutely striped of their leaves, which included my raspberries and strawberries. I know the plants will recover, but the strawberries in particular were loaded with blooms and I suspect that took out the first round of fruit for the season.

Sad! Hail is so damaging to the garden.

In answer to your earlier question, I have not yet tried eating the nasturtiums, but I may try them this year if they do well. Trying new things keeps life interesting.

Today is lovely, so carrots got planted in the garden and my tomato and pepper seedlings spent a little time outside in the shade. I think I will head back outside and do some digging since I have some perennials that need to be moved. I limit digging times or this old lady gets too stiff and sore!

Conga-rats on the house, fledge! Anything you hope will already be in your garden?

Hail is devastating indeed...one June years ago we had a freak thunder/hail storm that cost some of the nearby farmers bad. Here some of the hail stones actually tore right through the leaves of our lilac plants. And the noise from that storm was awful, it sounded like a freight train running right past the house for a couple hours.

Supposed to get a series of thunderstorms next week. Hope there's no hail, just rain to keep fire danger down. My lettuces, cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, beefsteak tomatoes, and watermelons are sprouting.

We've had what I would call actual Spring weather for several days, so I've been out in the yard and garden, getting as much done as possible before the weather turns hot. Today it is 80 degrees F (which I do consider hot), so I've been working in the shade when possible.

A friend from church divided some of her daylilies for me--she has over a dozen varieties to choose from, which was fun. I put them in to a newly dug perennial border around our deck. Most of our yard is quite sandy, so it was quite a surprise to me to find clay 8" down when digging the new bed. I dug out about another 8" of the clay and relocated it to where the paths will be in the garden. Then I mixed plenty of compost and cow manure with the top soil to fill the hole back in. I hope the result is a good place for daylilies to grow. I foresee doing some rearranging in years to come as I learn which ones bloom when.

Our new raised beds are almost all complete and in place, which is good since it's nearly time to get them planted! Yesterday was the average last frost date for our area, so I'm eager to get things in the garden. Right now all my little plants are enjoying the sunshine on the deck.

The alpine strawberries that I started from seed are still very tiny. I hope they survive and grow, but if not, I'm only out $2.95 for the seed.

Well we've had lots of rain and colder temps over the past few days, hail on Tuesday evening(apparently there was snow for a few minutes right before the hail, neighbor told me, but I was 'hiding' and refusing to look out the window). Luckily I had kept my starts inside. And my cotton is finally sprouting! I really hope I can get them to grow properly this year, not only because I'm just about out of seeds, but I have that spinning wheel and it's much easier to grow a plant than it would be to raise sheep and shear them.

And it's funny, I planted 5 peat pots full of the rest of my nasturtium seeds middle of last month, but only one of those seeds sprouted, and our new pastor's wife had mentioned on facebook how much she likes them, so I figured I'd give her my single one Monday, had two sets of leaves already. Wednesday morning checking my starts, two other nasturtiums had sprouted.

Kalta, I'm intrigued by your cotton! How much cotton do you grow? I'd think you'd have to grow a lot in order to make good use of it.
Do you have any kind of cotton gin that separates the seeds for you? A couple years ago, someone brought a tiny one to our state fair for demonstrations. Two of my kids got to throw some cotton seeds in and then came home with cotton fuzz.

This year my garden consists of one Cherokee Purple tomato and a Jupiter green pepper. My son picked out the latter.

But I've managed to do a lot of gardening in the flower department. My front flower bed is done. The bulk of the big plants that my sister designed for my fairy garden are in and I think growing. One of my clematis is a bit unhappy, but I don't think it's dead, just set back. For Christmas my sister-in-law gave me a bunch of tiny hanging pots, which I filled with moss roses and alyssum and hung all over my dead decorative tree branch.
My sister gave me a flat of plants as a late birthday gift and I still have four plants to find a home for. Two of them I know where to put, but the other two I'm not sure about.... Everything is sooo wet and soggy right now, it's hard to work in the garden right now.

I've never really had much luck til now, I think I'll only have 2 or 3 plants, and I'm going to do it all by hand if I actually get some bolls.

The past week (and much of May) has been cool and wet. Today and tomorrow are spectacular and I know local gardeners are hard at work getting things done before rain moves in again tomorrow night...and before the summer crop of mosquitoes (hindered by our cool weather) emerges in full force.

Kalta, I'm intrigued by your cotton!

So am I! You must live a lot farther south than Minnesota to grow cotton.

My front flower bed is done. The bulk of the big plants that my sister designed for my fairy garden are in and I think growing.

I would love to see a photo of your fairy garden.