Rain, Rain (go away)...

Today's my day off. It's been raining and cloudy and cool for several days now, and the ground is too wet to plant anything. Really all I can do is pull weeds. That's not necessarily a bad thing--the sand burs are unfortunately alive and well. They don't seem to be as thick as last year, but the fact that they're here at all is disheartening.

I'm hoping to get grass planted this fall. The thing holding us up right now is deciding where there will be flower beds and where the patio will be. We could have made a mad dash and planted some of the yard with grass, but I keep hearing that it's better (less work, easier to establish strong growth) to plant grass in the fall.

My peas are kicking ass. All this rain means that I can go out and almost watch them grow. And I even have pictures now. They're growing here:
That's my favorite one. We'll see how it looks when there are vines growing all over it. I'm betting it will be awesome, though. For now, that's the only picture I'm going to post. The other two spots aren't as neat-looking, and won't be until the vines have really gone to town.

So that's the extent of the outside vegetables right now. I had hoped that the ground would be dry enough to get some of the bigger tomato transplants into the ground, but... yeah. And yes, I realize it's still a little early to have them outside. But I was going to try a package of those "Wall-o-Water" things. A little gimmicky, perhaps, but I've heard good things, and some of those tomatoes are too tall for me to even try putting them under the lights anymore. I just don't want them to die. Not after all the money I've spent on lights and heat mats and soil medium and peat pots... Nevermind the time.

One of the things I don't have to worry about this year is my chocolate mint. Last year I only got to pinch it back twice, and I was afraid it wouldn't live to see this year. This year, though, the patch on the west end of the house is kicking ass. Today I'm making my first batch of candy out of it. In a few weeks I'm going to try the ice cream recipe I have.

But for now, the weather's crappy and cool, and I need to do something productive. Perhaps I'll re-pot some houseplants.

:)

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?