The High Hopes of Early Spring Gardening

Well, I'm often warned against getting my hopes up for a rainy day in Fort Collins, and for good reason. My enthusiasm for a rainy forecast was all for naught, yet again. Remember that rainy Sunday I was getting all pumped for? Yeah, that didn't happen. It was a cloudy and windy Sunday, but most def not a rainy one. And since then, we've had a total of maybe .00001 inches of rainfall. So, yeah, you can see why I get frustrated with the weather from time to time. But seeing the news reports on the horrendous flooding currently happening in Florida  and remembering the damage of the flood last fall does tend to put things in perspective for me. Plus, I do love the Colorado-blue skies and warm sunshine we get in abundance. So, I'm going to move on from complaining about the lack of rain...for now.

I'm more than ready to talk about early spring gardening, and all of the big hopes and dreams that come with it. And May Day is probably one of the best times to have the discussion. May is probably my favorite month of the year. Not only is it host to my birthday and wedding anniversary, but it signifies the true awakening of the plant world, too. So I get very giddy in May. And this year is no different.

Mixed lettuce sprouts in my Salad Bowl container

This year, I was on top of early-spring planting for the first time in my short gardening career. I planted onions, carrots, peas, beets and my lettuce bowl in Mid-March and everything is coming along nicely except for my beets. I didn't have any luck with my beets last year, either, so I'm still trying to solve that riddle. If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them! I planted my garlic too late last year (another learning experience), but they came back in full force this year, making for a pleasant springtime garden surprise.

My pea sprouts and a stick-and-hoop trellis. Garlic and onions in the 2nd bed in the background

Early in March, my friend clued me into the fact that peas and beets should be sprouted before you plant them in order to get the best results. So, I put my seeds in a damp paper towel, then into a plastic bag, then into my grow station to get some little sprouts. They not only managed to grow sprouts, but mold, too! So that was my first mistake, and could possibly be why my beets aren't growing. Peas are much bigger than beet seeds, so I was able to easily pick out the pea sprouts with little to no mold on them, and scratch off the mold that was there. Plus peas are so easy. I'm going to grow more next year, I think. They are basically the beans of springtime.

I'm not really a crafty person, but peas require some sort of trellis, so I found skinny sticks to stick into the ground near the spouts, then angled those sticks toward two garden hoops on the edge. I'm hoping they will grow towards those garden hoops and make a double-arch of peas over the garden bed. That'd look pretty awesome. If I ever get some DIY confidence again, there are a variety of even cooler things I could do for a pea trellis:

A cool, artsy pea trellis

Pea trellis made of tree branches

Somehow, I highly doubt my attempts would look anything like the trellises above.

Another thing I learned more about this year is something called "Companion Planting." I'm pretty excited about this concept, and it will keep coming up. As I mentioned in a previous post, the basic idea is planting plants with and near others that help them grow and keep away pests. And of course, there are always some plants that are better off being separated. For instance, pole beans don't like beets, onions or garlic, so they are a little pickier than others. It's a pretty awesome concept, and I'm totally embracing it.

Onions are really good companion plants in general, because they keep away a variety of pests, so I've planted them pretty much everywhere (I did try to keep them away from my designated bean spot). Onions are said to be especially helpful to carrots because they keep away carrot flies and help to loosen the soil, making it easier for the root vegetable to grow down. I also heard from a gardener friend that radishes do the same thing. Both carrots and onions are good companion plants for tomatoes, so I've planted a mix of carrots and onions around my designated spots for tomatoes. I'll take pictures of the onions and carrots together once the carrot tops get a little bigger.

My early-spring veggies have been hanging out in the ground for over a month now, and it's time to move on to planting my tomatoes this weekend. I have new garden hoops that I can use to put garden fabric over them if we hit any frosty nighttime lows. I'll probably plant my pepper starters, cucumbers, beans and herbs in two more weeks.

Still doing a good job guarding the plants he is.

Pepper, Marigold and Tomato starts with Thyme groundcover 

But my big, time-consuming project this weekend will be trying to dig up as many weeds as possible in the paths around the garden beds, prepping the soil and planting some Thyme ground cover to try to create a pretty, weed-resistant mat around the stepping stones. I have a big issue with Bindweed in this area, so I'm really trying not to get my hopes up. But the pictures of quick-spreading, drought-resistant and sun-loving Thyme groundcover on High Country Gardens makes that kinda hard.

A lawn of "Reiter Creeping Thyme"

"Pink Chintz" Thyme

If I can coax my "Reiter" and "Pink Chintz" Thyme to look a fraction as good as these pictures, I'll be happy. I just need something that will go to battle with the stupid Bindweed that will never, ever disappear.

Meditations on Growth and Change

Almost three years. THREE years! Has gone by since I last posted on this blog. I can't believe the last time I sat down to write a blog post, we were new homeowners,  I hadn't yet tacked on a new last name, and Scout was still just a pup. I only had one niece back then; now I have two nieces, a nephew and my friend's baby girl, who I consider a niece, as well. Patrick hadn't even thought about going back to school (he's in grad school now) and I was luxuriating in all of the possibilities that come with a salaried job with benefits.

We got married! May 26, 2012

I think about this blog so much that I can't fully understand why I'd decided to let it go. I do know that I had some worries about keeping a gardening/environmental blog. Worry of being just another writer out there drowning in the vast blog world, worry of not writing anything that anyone other than myself cares about, and worry about offending and/or angering those who do not agree with my opinions and thoughts on sustainable agriculture and environmentalism. I could go so much further into the multitude of reasons for why, and the reasons for having those reasons, but that's not what I want to do for my first post back. No. I want this blog to be a celebration of  growth, change and nourishment. I want to celebrate cultivation in all its senses.

And right now, I want to celebrate Spring! And ya'll know I do what I want. So here goes.

 Scout had a great winter! She loves the snow.

It was a harsh winter for my family and friends who reside in the arctic-blasted Midwest. In Fort Collins, we had your average Colorado winter with a few frigid days, some snowy days and many sunny, mild days. Patrick's birthday (Feb 2nd) was a classic Colorado bluebird day, which is a nice mixture of sun and snow.

The b-day boy fresh from an epic powder weekend in Winter Park

No matter how easy the winter has been, the first sprouts of Spring are a welcome sight. We started having beautiful spring-time weather in mid-March this year. As soon as it's warm enough, I post up on the deck during the weekend, bust out my garden notebook, along with a few gardening catalogs for brain fodder, and start my garden planning.

I can always count on having big dreams for my little garden. This year is no different. This year, I'm determined to extend the gardening season as well as push the space limitations on my two 8x4 garden beds. I'm also experimenting in companion planting this year. That means I did some research on what plants help each other grow, what flowers keep pests away and which plants prefer not to live in close quarters with each other.  More on all of this later. I'm still in my spring-dreaming phase, so give me some time to soak it in, along with the sun and 70-degree weather.

This is what's been going on since the first signs of spring in March:

Weeds are the 1st to spring to life in garden area

Xeric landscaping begins to show signs of life

Mid-march: Patrick and I both get to work outside

 In a rare burst of DIY confidence, I decided to collect TP rolls and use them as seed pods this year. I cut the rolls in half, cut the bottoms in four places and folded them in to create the bottom of the pot, then taped it to stay closed. They are re-used, bio-degradable and you can just plant them with the seeds. I'm not sure if I'd do it again for five reasons:
1. They got a little moldy around the sides since the cardboard never really dried out.
2. They sat at wonky angles since the bottoms weren't perfectly flat.
3. Some rolls came apart at the seams, making open sides on some of the seed pods.
4. The tape didn't stay taped and some bottoms came apart.
5. It was a pain in the butt.
Despite all of these little issues, I still managed to grow healthy veggies.

Oh, and Yoda. He's my designated plant guardian this year. A good job he has done.

Still Mid-March: Early seed starting for an extended growing season

Late March: time to transplant to bigger pots it is

After transplanting in late March, the veggies are looking promising under their grow lamp

April 20th: Veggies need to be planted or transplanted soon

April 20th: The yard is the greenest it likely will ever be this year

Grow and change. That's what we do. That's what happens in this ever-expanding universe. Try to stop it and crushed you will be. I enjoy observing the change and striving to nurture it. That way, I can be a small part of its healthy growth, deep roots and flourishing life.