Spring Gardening, Missouri Style

It's been a wonderful spring in my opinion, for gardening. Who knew you could get such beautiful crops this time of year.?! I took the extra steps to cover my cole crops, such as my cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower, and the cabbages are doing beautifully.

The potatoes shot up like weeds, so I may get two crops if I do this right. Although you can't see them, on the hill behind the potato plants are raspberry starts. My goal is to have a single row, up against the fence, so I don't have the major weeding I dealt with in Oregon.

My garlic is getting the scapes, so harvest time is coming soon. I look forward to sauteed garlic scapes for dinner. Garlic scapes are the seed pod bearers that come up from the center of the plant. once they reach a certain length they start to curl. After you get the second curl you can harvest them, and should so you garlic plants put all their energy into forming the clove bulbs. You can saute them and add them to all sorts of stir fries, or eat them by themselves, or you can pickle them. They're delicious!

We're getting some peas this year, yay! So far the beets and carrots are doing okay, but they do look like the need a bit of nourishment. All in all though, the garden is looking pretty good! How's your garden growing? What are you planting this year?

Monday Madness - Dear Mother Nature.....

 

I thought we had an agreement! I collected the toilet paper rolls, empty milk cartons, saved the salad tubs, bought grow lights, all to get started on Spring planting.  I even sacrificed my breakfast bar to start to this venture.....

 

See the little salad seedlings peeking out of the soil?  They have come out of their long slumber on a promise that they will be the star of the dinner table someday soon.

 

The Cress is already growing tall, and soon will be ready to harvest... I had even told them they would get to go outside this morning to enjoy some warm sunshine.....

 

.......and then you send us this!!!!!  I thought your affair with the WIND was over! You were the one who said he was just a big blowhard, so pushy, and messing things up all the time. Then you had to throw in his buddy SNOW!

 

It's just shameless how these poor little daffodils are shivering! If you really want to have a romantic fling, would you consider RAIN? He's manly, but can be so gentle and soothing to spend time with. He's great for going on walks with, and really helps the garden turn green and lush. Wouldn't that be much nicer than frost bitten, wind blown blossoms and fruit trees stripped bare by WIND'S violent nature? Treated right, RAIN will also let SUN have a bit of time to brighten things up and wrap you in his warmth. I don't know about you, but I'm so ready for you to dump WIND and SNOW and move on to some REAL  weather men. 

Straw Bale Gardening

I have discovered a different way to garden that I thought I would share with you. It's straw bale gardening. Some of the benefits are space, no need for a lot of soil, weed free, and easy on your back. There are several links on the internet talking about this process, but from what I can gather you want to stay away from hay bales which are full of weed seeds and go for straw. If you don't have much room to garden and your soil is poor this might be just the ticket for you. I would love to try this but here in our area I might be hard pressed to find straw. I will be on the hunt though. Here's the link to Nichol's Nursery that I found most informative. Let me know if you give it a try and what your results are. Happy gardening!