More plan(t)s.

Yesterday I wandered my yard and planted the sugar snap peas I presprouted. I know it's a little late, but I had planted quite a few without presprouting them, and I hadn't seen any come up. When I was planting, though, I saw that a few survivors are, in fact, coming up. I think the squirrels got to a lot of them, and I'm sure my lack of watering didn't help anything.

So, with any luck at all, I'll have more peas than I will be able to eat alone. I planted them basically anywhere there is sunshine and something for them to climb. (Pictures soon, I promise.)

I got all the everbearing strawberries (Quinoa, I believe, is the actual name of these) planted on the day of my last post. They aren't really doing anything, but we'll see. The roots didn't seem dead--they weren't crackly or brittle or anything when I took them out of their bag. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that even if I don't have berries this year, the plants might straggle along well enough to see next year. There are two live June-bearing plants on my porch that need to be planted, and also the bare-rooted ones. I wanted to get them all into the ground on the same day, but to be honest there are a few things slowing me down:

• The large quantity of newspaper I saved all winter is gone. I think we used a lot of it when we were painting the kitchen cabinets, and BoyWonder may or may not have recycled some, too.
  
• I'm out of shape. I mean, I was pretty lazy this winter and never really got around to working out like I used to. So tilling by hand wears me out really fast. So does vigorous weeding. Mowing... hah. The last few days I only did minor yard work (some weeding, some mowing, a little tilling, and a very small bit of digging) and my shoulders and upper back are killing me.
  
• I don't know where I want everything to go. I have general ideas, sure. But I'm constantly in a situation where I have talked it through with BoyWonder, planned, talked more, and then when I finally plant something, he has a negative opinion or just looks at me all disappointed and irritated. It really hinders my creativity and my drive sometimes. For now I'm trying to make things as pretty as possible, just to prove that my love of growing food can be productive and pretty.

Big things are coming up for my plants, though. I'm excited and terrified, actually. Since it's now just two weeks until the last frost date, and the tomatoes are outgrowing their indoor setup, I think it's time to start hardening them off. On the next fairly calm day, I'm going to put them outside, just for maybe an hour or two, and we'll continue like that for probably about three weeks, depending of course on the weather and well-being of these plant's I've put a lot of time and money and effort into. This is the terrifying part. Really.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't try to build some type of small, portable (or easy to assemble and then dismantle) greenhouse or coldframe. It won't be in time for these seedlings, though. It would be a late-fall or early-spring venture--the truth here is that I've spent enough money on seed-starting equipment this year. If everything holds up through the next few seasons, I'll know it was money well spent. If I can occasionally do one thing or another during the winter (like build a better setup for the lights, which is on the agenda for... well... soon), it'll be better. I can't do it all at once, and I'm okay with that. It gives me time to think about what I really need, where it will go when it's in use, where it will be stored when it's not, and if BoyWonder will help or hinder... You never know about him. My hope is that he'll enjoy the garden food this summer and maybe start to think about liking gardening someday.

It's a longshot, I know. But a girl can dream, right?