2009 Planting Timeline

Much, much thinner lettuce planting. Make seed tape.

Inspired by Skippy's Vegetable Garden, I made a timeline to use for my spring planting, using May 15th as a last frost date. You may recall the garden plan I made.

I sow very little indoors, since I don't have room to keep seed trays warm and lit. Indoors, I will only be starting cukes, squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers, close to when they can be set out. Plus, the few cabbage I got from the seed swap. I need to research how to grow the 10 Egyptian Walking Onion sets.

I am sure this timeline will get tweaked before spring:

Winter: Order seeds. Collect winter sowing containers and potting soil. Make SWC's out of 5-gal buckets. Keep worms busy making fertilizer. Make "seed tape" out of paper towels for carrots, beets, greens, onions. Scavenge more fishboxes.

March 7: Winter-sow basil, thyme, oregano, annual flowers in milk jugs.
March 14: Buy onion sets at Glick's and plant at Mom's.
March 28: Sow romaine, greens, and spinach in fishboxes. Sow peas in home garden.

April 11: Get hay bales set up at Mom's yard. Fill raised bed for sweet potatoes and screen from groundhogs. Spring clean-up. Talk to neighbor about mushroom soil for Mom's.
April 18: Sow beets, carrots, greens in home garden. Sow onion seeds at Mom's.
April 25: Sow cucumbers, sunflowers, squash indoors. Transplant herb and flower starts to pots.

May 2: Buy transplants of eggplant, zucchini, celery, peppers, parsley at Glick's. Buy brassica transplants and sweet potato sets at Kutztown auction. Look for calendula transplants, and chocolate mint. Try not to be seduced by tomato plants.
May 16: Set out cucumbers (in hay bales) and sunflower plants at Mom's. Sow more romaine and greens in fishboxes.
Memorial Day: Set out eggplant, zucchini, celery, peppers in SWCs at home. At Mom's: transplant watermelon, pumpkin, and winter squash in hay bales. Plant sweet potato sets in raised beds.

Edit: I just found out that June 3rd is called "Bean Day" by local farmers so that is when we will plant all our beans.

June: Sow more basil in pots. Sow beans in home garden. Plan fall planting timeline. Watch for more herbs at transplant clearance sales.

Note: SWC = Self-Watering Container.

Consider this year: Depending how things are going with the food coop, take orders for vegetable transplants from Glick's, close to Memorial Day.

Contact my 4 neighbors that have neglected the concrete planters in front of their houses, and ask if I can plant them with mint or other herbs and flowers.

Consider next year: Order bulk seed, onion sets, and potato sets to resell through coop. Have workshop to demo building SWCs, worm farms, and make seed tape.

Just one zuke, in a SWC, covered in nylon netting to
thwart the squash vine borers, with manual pollination.
Maybe a second plant at Mom's.

Howling Hill Seed Swap 2008-2009

This was one snapdragon plant, that bloomed from July to well after frost.

Yay! I got the envelope for the Howling Hill Seed Swap today. It starts in New Hampshire and goes out full of non-GMO seeds, circulating from person to person on a list. Each of us chooses some seeds, then replaces the seeds with new ones, and sends the evelope to the next person on the list. I am the 4th person. It will circulate to 16 addresses before it goes home to Howling Hill.

It came to me from Rebecca Cameron in Ithaca, NY, and I will send it to Melissa Thompson in Woodbridge, VA, on Monday.

I took a packette of Oregano, 10 of the Egyptian Walking Onion sets, 20 Detroit Dark Red Beet seeds, a pinch of Pink Double Poppy seeds, 10 White Cleome seeds, 5 Cabbage Buscaro, 2 Yellow Squash, and a pinch of the Mustard Greens.

Good-bye seed swap envelope! It says on the back, "Reuse this envelope until it falls apart." I wonder if it will make it back to Howling Hill?

Closed Four O'Clock flowers open in the afternoon into little yellow trumpets.

I put in seeds for yellow Four O'Clock's I collected from a neighbor, Melampodium from a swap, a packette of Roman Chamomile, Asian Tiger Melon from an organic farmer this summer, heirloom Brandywine Tomato seeds, rose-colored snapdragons from my yard, Italian basil seeds from my prolific plants this summer, and seeds from pods I let dry on my False Indigo.

The color isn't ideal in this photo, but the False Indigo (baptisia) is in the pea family and has attractive blue-green foliage that gets about 48" high, with lovely purple-blue flowers that bloom at the time of peonies and iris. The flowers turn into nice pods. Plant needs circular staking or some other prop by mid-summer.

Plan for Food Garden 2009

Fish boxes with lettuce and spinach last May.

What do you do when there is sleet pelting the windows and cars skidding down the street? Stay home! I did some garden planning for next year.

Once again, I am not sure I will be at my current address all of next summer's growing season. Depends on many things: Will DH get into grad school? Will we be able to prepare my mother's house for habitation? Will we move to another city altogether? Will the collapsing economy have us all sharing a cardboard box under a bridge? The future is murky.

I am going to plan for a combination of my yard and my mother's. I will put most things in containers here at my house, so I can take them to Mom's if I need to move. My yard has the advantage of soil built up for a few years. Mom's soil is awful and thin in the sunny places, so I will have to build beds and use containers there, too. She also has groundhogs that will need trapping.

Another option is to get a community garden plot. I am still thinking about that. But then I would be tending three gardens. Maybe I could get a plot for just a few crops, like sweet potatoes, corn, onions, and cabbage. We'll see.

Lessons learned in this past year's garden:

• I don't have the patience for the many challenges of tomatoes, so no tomatoes next year. We always know people with excess tomatoes that we can have or buy cheaply, so I will put my energy into other crops.
  
  
• Consistent watering is not my strong suit. There always comes a time in the summer when something takes me away from the garden and things get too dry. I need to automate watering, using Self-Watering Containers (SWCs) and/or driplines.
  
  
• The potatoes were a limited success. I can buy them cheaper. I will just grow sweet potatoes, which did very well with little care in 2007.
  
  
• I liked the winter-sowing of herbs and annual flowers. I will do that in milk jugs again in late winter. Lots more basil.
  

Various herb sprouts in milk jug greenhouses in May.

I plan to use several growing methods. I like my fish boxes for for lettuce and other greens, raised high off the ground to avoid pests that munch and cats that spray urine. They are easy to cover with nets. I will sow the fishboxes around St Patrick's Day, when I plant onions at Mom's house.

I planted some big containers last year, and will do it again but make them SWCs. I got some recommendations from my container-gardening list, and I think I will plant peppers, eggplant, chard, zucchini, and celery in big SWCs.

I want to try Straw Bales at my mother's house. They will be good for a year or two, and will break down into her soil. I thought I would try the vining veggies there, cucumber and squashes.

What to plant in the ground when I might move? I was thinking lots of peas the mature early, and then beans if it looks like we will be here through the summer. Several rounds of basil can go in at my house and Mom's. Onions and other roots go in at her house, if I can get a decent raised bed prepared. I liked the carrots and beets this year. I am very tempted to buy "seed tape" for carrots and beets, which I spent a lot of time thinning.

I enjoyed growing my first onions this summer.

The herbs can go into portable clay pots again. Basil and parsley will come from seeds, but I think I will get another thyme, some sage, and some rosemary from starts at Glick's greenhouse.

I experimented with basil in pots and in the ground. Both worked,
but I need more of it. What looked like a lot of pesto in July,
is almost gone in December.

I want to grow larger amounts of fewer veggies, sticking more closely to what I know we will eat. I already have some seeds, from seed-saving, and from catalog orders this fall:

Corn, Ornamental Indian
Cabbage, Copenhagen (heirloom)
Pea, Mississippi Silver field pea
Pea, Tall Telephone - needs trellis
Pea, Black-eyed (saved)
Lentil, French Green
Basil, sweet Italian (saved)
Bean, Commodore Bush Bean (red)
Bean, Taylor Dwarf Horticultural Bush bean (saved)
Bean, Pole bean, Romano (Italian Flat)
Lettuce, Romaine, Parris Island Cos
Spinach, Bloomsdale Long Standing
Cucumber, Lemon Apple
Squash, Burgess Buttercup
Squash, Waltham Butternut

There is a Seed Round Robin coming in the mail from one of my lists, eventually. It might have things I am still missing. Otherwise, I will put in another catalog order. I still need:

chard
kale
sunflowers for seeds
pickling cukes
pie pumpkins
carrots
beets
thyme

Some things, I like as starts from Glick's where I can buy just one plant for less than 50-cents, for my small yard or container. Things I will get from starts at Glick's:

onions sets
sweet potato sets
one zucchini
one eggplant
celery

My cabbage and broccoli starts this past year were savaged in flats that were given to me when they were half-dead. I got a lot of veg from those free flats. I know that they originally came from the Kutztown Produce Auction. I am going to check that out in the spring. If I can get starts very cheaply, it will be a more efficient use of my time than nursing and thinning seeds. And, I can share extras with neighbors.

So, that's my plan, so far. I wish I could grow some fruit, but everything takes time to get established, so I will probably keep buying at markets and visiting u-pick places until we are settled someplace more permanently.

What have you learned this year, so far?

Been sharing the parsley flowers with some little visitors. When they get big, we will put them in a bug box to watch them make a chrysalis and then emerge from it.

Anyway, I wrote this in response to a question on a container gardening list.

1. WATER: Invest in soaker hoses and water barrels. Manual watering is uneven and hard to gauge. Most things in containers need a self-watering feature, no matter how faithfully one plans to water.

2. FISH BOXES: Get more fish boxes - works great for greens. Focus on what we already eat: romaine, spinach, bok choy, and kale. No exotic lettuce.

3. FERTILIZER: Compost is not enough. Everything got bigger after the fish emulsion. Explore other organic fertilizers. Find a source for mushroom dirt or compost at the start of the season - small city yards cannot produce enough compost.

4. SOWING: Winter-sowing in milk jugs is good for annuals and herbs, not so much for veggies. Mid-March start for onions, lettuce, spinach, peas was good. Transplanting peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes too early is dumb. Build cold frame this fall.

5. YIELD: Herbs, celery, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, and peppers suit us best, so far. Tomatoes, zucchini and cukes are hard to protect from bugs, and local organic can be bought easily and inexpensively. Plant lots more beans and peas. Replace some ornamentals with more medicinals.

6. NEIGHBORHOOD: Expand program of helping kids plant tomatoes in containers. Ask more neighbors if we can "farm" their unused front yard planters.

Independence Challenge - Week 8

Been thinking about the conflicts between wanting to stock up, wanting to buy local, and wanting to buy organic - all on a very limited budget. Each of those efforts requires extra spending. I am thinking that all of my spending needs to go toward stocking up, for now. Once I have good tools and at least a few months of supplies, then I can spend more on organic and local sources going forward. I will continue to go to the markets, to garden, and to buy local/organic at every opportunity that does not cost me a lot more. But I am really worried about the effect of the flooding in the Mid-West. I feel like I need to simply get more food put by, faster.

Planted: Planted zinnia seeds in a tray. Cowpeas sprouted within days. With reluctance, I decided not to plant for fall, at least not in the ground. I may have moved by then. Will keep filling movable pots with herbs and greens, and harvest what I already have growing.

Harvested: The first zucchini, and a few young carrots. A black swallowtail butterfly caterpillar from the volunteer dill in the compost pile - for observing, not eating.

Preserved: Dried oregano and sage from the farmer's market.

Prepped/Managed: Bought food service size canisters of bay leaves and black peppercorns. Bought 6 sizable jars of spices at an estate sale. Includes 2 each of whole nutmegs, ground cinnamon, and ground ginger. They could be years old, but it was 50 cents and I stuck them in my pantry for future testing. Also scored four heavy aluminum cookie sheets. *Just* missed getting a reel mower for $5; a man stepped in front of me and picked up the handle. I watched in case he didn't buy it, but he snapped it right up after testing it in the grass. Darn!

Cooked: Tried garlic scapes from the market - good roasted with balsamic vinegar, like asparagus or green beans. DD15 made stir fry with them, too. Bought a jar of raw honey to try. Made a new crockpot sausage recipe that would also work in a solar oven. Pickled fresh beets from the market (instead of canned), to make red beet eggs (a local PA Dutch delicacy) - good practice for my own beets, which will be ready soon. I might try to pickle and can those.

Finally made yogurt - whoo hoo! The crockpot method worked. I used an electronic thermometer with a probe to monitor the temperature of the yogurt on this first batch. Temp might be harder to maintain when ambient room temperature is below 60 in cooler weather. Used a half a gallon of regular store-bought whole milk and half a cup of organic yogurt as a starter. Next, trying it with lovely un-homogenized organic milk.

System-building: Planted basil, marjoram, and marigolds in another neighbor's front planter. Since I am out of space in my own yard, I have to farm other people's yards! Hauling water may be an issue. The little garden we planted with girl up the block is doing well.

Reduced, Reused, Recycled: Freecycling and eBaying extra junk from cleaning the cellar, recycling cardboard. Electric usage is down a little - the girls finally caught on to using the clothesline for almost everything.

Learned: That I was not doing a good job of growing celery. Read up on it, and have now tied the stalks for blanching and am watering more. Found great jam-making website/guru on my food storage list. Researched Bokashi composting.

Library: Berks County Cook Book of Pennsylvania Dutch Recipes. Copyrighted in 1934 by J. Levan, this collection of recipes "from yesteryear", appears to have been sponsored by a department store, Pomeroy's, which advertised itself as a purveyor of fine foodstuffs. (I worked in that department store when I was a teen - it's gone now.) It promises to be a treat to read. A recipe for Stewed Rabbit starts, "Dress and skin a rabbit carefully." Imagine, it was once assumed that one already knew HOW to do that! This treasure, complete with authentic mouse-chewed corner, cost me 50 cents, along with a book of bread machine recipes. Also ordered a used copy of Kitchen Witchery, at the suggestion of another Independence blogger.

To-Do List Update

Things are on hold until this heatwave breaks Tuesday night, but then we have things to do in our yard:

- replant fish boxes with broccoli and lettuce
- start cowpeas to replace peas
- harvest remaining peas and compost vines
- harvest dill, bee balm, and mint
- pot up coleus and plant marigold starts
- water everything with epsom salts - 1 Tbl to 2 gallons
- shear the grass again later this week
- root cuttings of salvia, sedum, baptisia
- expand veggie bed for cabbage plants
- find source for food-grade 5-gallon buckets
- figure out peony problem - Phytophthora?
- move - bee balm, salvias, sedums, small peony, iris

And in Mom's yard:

- sort pots
- plant parsnips & sweet potatoes
- plant something new in fish boxes
- borrow pick-up truck to haul brush and scrap

Planning Round-up

As it starts to look very likely that we will move sometime this summer, I thought it would be good to go through my planning lists and round-up all the unfinished tasks that need doing.

In my own yard:

- water with Epsom Salts water, 1 Tbl in 2 gallons
- move potatoes out of pill-bug bucket - to Mom's
- finishing shearing grass for mulch
- Cut back the Sedums out front, and root cuttings.
- even out planting edge next to path
- make gift basket-gardens of greens and herbs
- find 5-gallon buckets to salvage
- buy 2 more bags of potting soil
- spray the peonies with baking soda water
- root cuttings of salvia and baptisia
- pot up - bee balm, small salvias and sedums
- move to Mom's - small peony, more iris (after bloom)

In Mom's yard:

- clear planting bed near gate
- prepare bed for carrots and parsnips
- plant sweet potatoes
- set up a fish box of greens
- find room for straw bales
- look for bean pole materials
- Patrol front yard for weeds
- call metal recycling places
- check into straw bales on Oley Turnpike Rd

Busy

I've spent bits of sanity time doing things in the garden, but haven't had time to post. Our Mother's Day gardening plans were derailed by a trip to Lancaster. Probably won't have time to get out there again until after the weekend. Incredibly busy and stressful week.

But the peonies are about to bloom. One is starting to loosen up. There are iris right behind, and I don't know how much bigger the yarrow can get without exploding.

I have been shearing parts of the grass and mulching with it. Weeding the onions and carrots. Reduced the pill bug population in the potato bucket by just scooping them out with a spoon and throwing them in the neighbor's desert-like yard. DD11 put some in her bug tank and has been reading about them - who knew they were crustaceans? Got the germinated parsnip seeds planted in the cardboard tubes, and a whole lot of garlic chives in a trough. The stolen Sedum seems to be doing OK.


Disappointed that I have now missed both the Master Gardener Sale and the Vo-Tech greenhouse sale. Maybe we will go up to the Kutztown Produce Auction one day soon - I know they have plants, as well as huge quantities of produce, if I start putting up more food.

Idea from a garden blog: a re-seeding garden full of annuals that reseed themselves. Forget-me-nots, larkspur, cleome, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, portulaca. Might be a good informal idea for Mom's side yard along the fence.

To-Do for Next Week

Aside from adding compost and scattering some eggshells around, I haven't done much fertilizing. I got a lot of blossom-end rot last year, so I need to do a bit more than *nothing* this year.

- Put paper collars on eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes
- Water all the veg with Epsom Salts water, 1 Tbl to 2 gallons.
- Figure out a way to control the pillbugs in the potatoes.
- Shear grass and mulch with it.
- Cut back the Sedums out front, and root cuttings.
- Clear some space in the back for herbs and parsnips.
- Plant germinated parsnips in tubes. (done)
- ENJOY the iris and peonies that are about to bloom.

Going to work on Mom's yard tomorrow for Mother's Day:

- Clear planting beds near gate
- Plant sweet potatoes
- Set up a fish box of greens
- Find some pea fence twigs to bring home
- Make room for straw bales
- Discuss bean poles
- Patrol front yard for weeds
- Still need to call recycling places
- Look harder for straw bales - Oley Turnpike Rd?

We had to miss the Master Gardener Sale, much to my disappointment. But the Oley Vo-tech has a sale from its greehouse next Tuesday, so maybe we can still find some nice things. We can always get more veg at Glick's, or try another nursery.

Ornamental maintenance

I am pretty focused on edibles this year, but I still get a lot of enjoyment out of the ornamentals. I need to do some work on those, too. I am still preparing to move away from this house, so I have more to dig up and move to Mom's yard.

Things to move this month:
- From the front planter: Bee Balm and Salvia. Mom has a lot of Sedums, but I guess I should move those after I take a lot of cuttings. I will fill the front with annuals - maybe I can find some good stuff at the Oley Vo-tech plant sale.
- From the alley - everything but the mint. The peony, the salvias, the iris. The passionflower won't sprout until almost June, then it will cover the back fence and attract all those rowdy bees.
- From the the back yard: I can move the rest of the iris after they bloom. I'll miss it anchoring the end of the border, but I can plant some early summer veg or herbs in their place. I should move the Bloodgrass, too (done).

Cuttings to make:
- Salvia - they are all looking strong, so I want to progagate more of them. I am especially loving the Salvia nemorosa 'Caradona' that I bought almost dead for 50 cents from the clearance rack at Lowes and nursed back to health.
- Sedums - I will cut them back to 4" soon, when they are 8" tall, and I can root all the cuttings
- False Indigo - It is going to bloom this year, so I don't want to disturb it, but I also don't want to leave it behind - so cuttings are called for. I read that I should stick cuttings in May, and that I need to have one bud node below the rooting medium.

Plan for Mom's Yard

My plan for Mom's yard is developing. So far:

- dig and amend a root vegetable bed
- do some straw bale gardening for other veg
- do a lot of the sprawling plants that don't fit in my yard
- culinary herbs in containers - she has lots of pots

Thinking: sweet potatoes, pole beans, winter squash/gourds/pumpkins, cucumbers, cabbage and kale, at least one tomato for her to eat. Watermelon?

Going to the County Extension's Master Gardener Sale next Friday, where I can look for veg to plant in her yard. Although, I got such a good deal on canna bulbs last year...

Kyle agreed to go pick up straw bales in his pick-up for Mom's yard. I need to find some bales first. I am going to dig a root bed for her tomorrow afternoon, and have Kyle get bales if I can locate some.

Wet and chilly week

Of course, as soon as I jump the gun and buy tomato and pepper plants, the weather turns cold. It will go back down to 37 tomorrow night. Lots of rain and somewhat chilly weather forecast for the next week to 10 days.

I planted the celery and parsley, which will be fine with the chill. They are in front of the peas.

We pounded in stakes and set up a cage for the two eggplants and the Brandywine tomato, but didn't plant them. I am debating whether to keep bringing them inside at night, or to plant them and cover them with boxes at night.

I planted the Pontiac Red and the Yukon Gold potatoes, but I am worried about the soil in the bucket. It seemed too wet, like the bucket wasn't draining well enough. I did start with half compost and half topsoil. Now it is supposed to rain for a week - I don't want them to rot. I may have to dig them back up quickly and work more organic matter into the bucket. Or drill more holes in it.

I must thin the greens this week. I will think some into the third fish box and take it to Mom's house. Some will be transplanted into little lettuce basket-gardens as gifts. Some of the lettuce may even be eaten immediately. But I will still have far more little plants, especially mustard spinach, than I can use. There is my lesson in succession planting - I planted the whole envelope at once. I need to get more boxes and set up a better system of planting every two weeks.

My seed swap arrived - commercial packets of Parsnip "Harris Model" and Pak Choi. Also a packet Roma tomato seeds that I won't use this year. I posted looking for a swap to get lemon cucumbers.

DD11 offered to weed the onions beds, and found a tiny white potato attached to one of the weeds. We realized that a piece of potato in last year's trench-composted kitchen scrap must have germinated. We replanted it in a spot with no onions.

More things to get done in the next week or so:

Thin greens
Make basket-gardens of greens
Find 5-gallon bucket for sweet potato
Buy more bags of dirt - try Lowes
Plant parsnip seeds to in toilet paper cores
Prepare bed at Mom's for carrots and parsnips
Spray the peonies with baking soda water

Lots happening now!

Weather: Clear and cool. Nights in the low 40s, days in the upper 50s. Occasionally warmer.

Things are cooking now! The peas popped out of the ground on the 11th. A few of the yellow onions have already sprouted, but many had to be replanted after cats dug them up - I guess the new plot looked like an attractive litter box. And now the bunching onions are also sprouting. The greens continue to do beautifully - developing second leaves. Will need thinning soon.

The jugs have not sprouted anything yet, but if the week warms up a bit as expected, that should change. I have decided to look for some broccoli transplants for the larger fish box. I need to get it off the ground and find a cover, to keep the cabbage butterflies away.

To do, this next week or so:

Find broccoli transplants
Get more seed potatoes (killed the first batch by forgetting to plant them)
Find tires for potato tower
Find 5-gallon bucket for sweet potato
Get parsnip seeds to plant in toilet paper cores
Lay out the brick path
Get the abandoned pallet behind Turkey Hill to use for a bed paths
Spray the peonies with baking soda water

Ohh! I found out when the spring Master Gardener Sale will be - Friday May 2 is the first day. Yay! Loved it last year - must put money aside.

On the ornamental side, a few tulips are blooming and I pressed a few daffodils and hyacinths to see how they turn out. Most of the perennials are showing good signs of new growth, some faster than the others. One peony is definitely racing ahead - could be a different cultivar than the slower ones, or the others could just be weaker plants. It's the only one that bloomed last year.

Taking the kids to work in Mom's yard on Wednesday. Should prove interesting. Have stopped in and looked at the things I transplanted in the fall, and they all look good. Getting her to make room in the back yard will be a priority, as well as clearing the junk out of eyeshot just inside the gate.

2008 Garden Plan

Since we expect to move this year, and we live in a rented house, I moved most of my perennials to Mom's yard last fall. I have a few left that I will pot up this year. I will leave behind what was in the yard when we arrived - peonies, lilies, roses. I will only be planting vegetables and a few annual flowers in this yard. Ideally, we will be able to take our containerized plants with us where we go (as yet to be determined). I plan to grow:

In the ground:

Onions, potatoes, and carrots
Peas along the fence
Beans up a trellis

Containerized in buckets, boxes, and bags along the sidewalk:

Spinach and lettuces in raised boxes
Zucchini - only one
Purple, orange, and yellow sweet peppers
Cherry tomatoes - Black Cherry and/or Sungold
Eggplant - just one "Little fingers" or "Hansel"
Might try baby beets in a box

Lots of potted herbs:

Italian parsley
French thyme
Lemon thyme
Basils - Genovese, Pesto Perpetuo, Thai "Queen of Siam"
French Tarragon
Lavender
Dill
Sage
Rosemary
Garlic Chives

Not growing paste tomatoes, broccoli, or cucumbers - they are all easy and cheap to buy locally, and they attract too many kinds of bugs and diseases. The zucchini will only last until early summer before the vine borers and squash bugs get it. I hope that putting it in a bucket will give me better access for bug-picking. Similarly, I hope that raising boxes of lettuce and spinach off the ground on crates will reduce the critter access. I am making slug traps for each box.

I am sure other things will catch my eye at the garden centers. The difficulty will be in resisting the ornamentals. I like my flowers - but I don't want to invest more in a yard I won't be keeping. I will have to work off my flower-gardening desires in Mom's yard. I am starting seeds for a few annuals here: marigolds, zinnia, calendula, etc - from saved seeds. Some coleus from starts, for color. The remaining perennials will also come up - peonies, iris, roses, stella d'oro lilies, and some guaras.

If we do end up staying here longer, I will plant greens, garlic, leeks, and shallots to overwinter. The lemon thyme would have produced all winter with a little protection. I missed the fresh basil, thyme and parsley when it was gone this winter. I dried some, but it wasn't the same.