Onions Up

Onions went in nine days ago. Looks like  a bit over 80% germination so far. 

Will plant another variety this week and start my tomatoes in five-inch pots next week. With weather warming this week It's hard not to get out and start working in the yard and garden, but it is still much too early. I have found some things that I can work on, hardscaping areas, good time of year for that. I will be building a new raised bed and working on garden fencing.

I may live in a sparsely populated state but we still have
 the occasional traffic jam

And sometimes we have to wait at the crosswalk

Have a great week and happy gardening.

Will not be long now

Amost Seed Starting Time

Backyard Birds - One of the Things I enjoy in Winter

Half a dozen seed catalogs looked at -- check

Seeds ordered -- check

Seeds received -- check

Ready for spring -- check

Looks like I have everything except spring weather, although we have had that the past few days. This week we had a foot of snow and a 70 degree day a few days later, the snow didn't last long.

I will plant my onions and tomatoes around the fifteenth of this month, a week from today. that will give me 12 weeks before planting May 15. A bit early for some but I have found that if I set my young plants out as much as possible that I can have very hardy plants by set out time. I will start flower seed and peppers on March 1.

Nice day again today 60 degrees but too much wind for my taste. We have a secluded, protected deck where it is in the mid 70s, where I am sitting now. Incredible day for February.

Five Days Ago in Backyard

My Quest for the First Tomato of the Season

Onion Sets 1 month old

Maybe we have turned the corner. The weather is warming and the frost is out of the ground in my garden. No, not time to plant yet, but I will be putting in some radishes, peas and carrots the first week of April. If they don’t come up I will replant on the 15^th and put in my potatoes. I start getting serious the first week of May. We can still get the little cold snap in May but I will put out onions and plant more peas, radishes and carrots in early May.

I save my tomatoes for later, around the twentieth of May.

3 week old tomato plants

 I do have two pots that I start tomato seeds in and add soil after they get their first true leaves, a little at a time. This way I have no transplant shock. These plants, a cherry and a yellow pear tomato, are on the deck on sunny days now.

I will get my first tomatoes from these in early June. Hope it will drive the gardeners around me crazy when I have fresh tomatoes six weeks before them.

I am now planting more flowers for my boarders, most of the first planting are growing but others I didn't want to start this early.

Hollyhocks at three weeks

 

Flowers in Wyoming- Indoor Seed Starting

My flowers are up and growing nicely in my furnace room hot house. One week in the soil mix and 70 of 72 cells have nice growth. These are most, not all of my colorful annuals and in the flats now are : Pansies, Petunias, Rudbeckia, Coleus, Snapdragons and Corn Poppy. If they get too big, I will repot, but I rarely have had to.

Today I started some hollyhocks and on the first of March, I will start Onions and tomatoes. Speaking of tomatoes I will put three or four cherry tomato seeds in a big patio pot today or tomorrow.

 Below is one of my two flower flats after one week.

 Spring can't be too far away, but just in case the Blue Spruce are showing a little winter color for us to enjoy.

Wyoming Blue Spruce Winter 2014