What did you do in the garden today?

[BReeder!]

And I'm missing thyme seeds...

I swear things keep coming up missing, or rather I clearly messed up when comparing my seed inventory to the garden plan and ordering seeds. The good news is I can pick up thyme just about anywhere. I also hope last year's thyme comes back this Spring , but I want to include more thyme in the new flower and herb beds along the garden fence.

Also, I've ordered plants and am starting seeds for these two fence border beds even though I have not done anything to the ground yet but hopefully choked out the grass with the weed fabric, logs and timbers I put down last year. I will need to remove the logs and timbers as well as the landscape fabric, till the soil, mix in compost, build a border (likely landscape timbers) and get mulch. There's going to be a fair amount of work as soon as the soil can be worked to make sure I have a place to put all these flower and herb plants.

 

[WthrLady]

Heading for 60 today even though it's still cloudy out. The winds aren't howling, so the birds are going outside today.
I'm heading out shortly to work on the hoophouse. I at least want to get the beds in so I can run the waterlines and let DH start bottom filling with alpaca poo and I'll top dress with compost and soil.

 

[BReeder!]

No fancy photoshop work, but I played around just a bit with pictures of the flowers and thyme for the longer fence border bed. I estimate it's 35ft long. There's a lot of color and hopefully some interest year round (even structural interest in the winter). I will also be plugging in several oregano and chive plants to fill between flowering plants for plenty of pops of green along the ground which will be mulch. It's a bit hard to see since it's a long image, but click on it and zoom in if you like.

The plant list is:
purple fountain grass
thyme
proud mari mix marigolds and garuda deep gold marigold (hybrid) [garuda not shown]
white double zahara zinnia
ellagance purple lavender
valentine giant bleeding heart
mesa red gallardia (hybrid)
cheyenne spirit echinacea

 

[BReeder!]

Heading for 60 today even though it's still cloudy out. The winds aren't howling, so the birds are going outside today.
I'm heading out shortly to work on the hoophouse. I at least want to get the beds in so I can run the waterlines and let DH start bottom filling with alpaca poo and I'll top dress with compost and soil.

Yeah! You finally get to work on it again. Being delayed by weather is no fun.

 

[Sueby]

It's funny how much further along most of you are with weather. My ground is frozen solid with a thick layer of ice & snow & will be for another month. There is no digging, no moving anything - heck I couldn't even get in the garden gate if I wanted. & it's snowing. I do love my garden & sometimes wish I could have a longer growing season, but then I really enjoy having the winter off - gardening is a lot of work. I don't know how y'all do it. I still haven't even re-done my garden layout yet (I'm mad I did it & then deleted it by accident).

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

It's funny how much further along most of you are with weather. My ground is frozen solid with a thick layer of ice & snow & will be for another month. There is no digging, no moving anything - heck I couldn't even get in the garden gate if I wanted. & it's snowing. I do love my garden & sometimes wish I could have a longer growing season, but then I really enjoy having the winter off - gardening is a lot of work. I don't know how y'all do it. I still haven't even re-done my garden layout yet (I'm mad I did it & then deleted it by accident).

Ditto that!

 

[BReeder!]

@Sueby and @BirdsBeesTrees
CT and Iowa are at least zone 5. I'm zone 5 and am started seeds indoors already. However, I am looking forward to larger transplants that will be in 6" pots by May 1st, after which I should be able to safely transplant them without much fear of frost. Also, I did start 2 weeks early than intended - I planned to begin sowing on 2/18. That said, if you feel the urge to get your hands dirty, consider starting celery or native flowers from seed - these things tend to take a long time to germinate and grow so now's the time I have found (last year, the hard way).

 

[TJAnonymous]

My goal for this year will be learning to collect and store seeds for next year. I've tried in the past with very poor results. I'm really making an effort this year to learn to do it right!

 

[BReeder!]

My goal for this year will be learning to collect and store seeds for next year. I've tried in the past with very poor results. I'm really making an effort this year to learn to do it right!

Me too! I did collect marigold seeds last year. I honestly don't know where they are now though.

I also find that to collect seeds you need to grow heirloom varieties and just one variety of a plant to prevent cross pollination. I often grow more than one variety of vegetables.

There are self pollinating plants that are safer to grow at the same time as other plants in the same family. I'm not an expert on them though. I do recall reading something about the length of the stamen in tomato flowers. Some tomato species have a very short pistil that make it difficult for pollinators to spread pollen from other flowers to the pistil because it's buried deep and surrounded by stamen. These are considered safe then to grow in close proximity with other tomatoes and still collect seeds because the seeds are most likely formed by self-pollination and will then bare true to the parent plant as long as it has stable genetics (heirloom)

 

[Acre4Me]

It's funny how much further along most of you are with weather. My ground is frozen solid with a thick layer of ice & snow & will be for another month. There is no digging, no moving anything - heck I couldn't even get in the garden gate if I wanted. & it's snowing. I do love my garden & sometimes wish I could have a longer growing season, but then I really enjoy having the winter off - gardening is a lot of work. I don't know how y'all do it. I still haven't even re-done my garden layout yet (I'm mad I did it & then deleted it by accident).

Same here. Then the spring rains will come.

But, I’m starting seeds so hopefully I can get larger transplants out -especially if peppers, and get the onions in the ground earlier than last year.