Order Placed

I have finally placed my seed orders with Johnny's Seeds and Pinetree Garden Seeds.  I tried to place a small order with Seeds of Change but when I called most of the items I wanted were canceled for the year or back ordered.  I was bummed because they had a few varieties I was excited to try but I was able to find similar replacements with Johnny's and Pinetree so it worked out.  Here is what I am getting:

Johnny's
Kenearly Yellow Drying Beans
Red Leaf Vegetable Amaranth
VIT Corn Mache
Toscano Kale
Space Spinach
Bouquet Dill
Royal Burgundy Bush Beans

Pinetree
Tendergreen Bush Green Beans
Jacob's Cattle Drying Beans
Red Cored Chatenay Carrots
Cosmic Purple Carrots
Bright Lights Swiss Chard
New Red Fire Lettuce
Beleah Rose Lettuce
Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce
Red Sails Lettuce
All Year Round Lettuce
Hollow Crown Parsnips
Cherry Belle Radish
Purple Plum Radish
French Breakfast Radish
New Zealand Spinach
Borage
Perser Mixture Asters
Pampas Plume Celosia
Cut and Come Again Zinnia
Grandpa Otts Morning Glory
Pumpkin Pepper

Bee School

This weekend I had the chance to attend a bee school/conference through SWOBA (Southwest Ohio Beekeepers Association).  This year I took the beginners beekeeping and seasonal management sessions.  The seasonal management sessions were in invaluable.  Next year I look forward to taking classes on pest and disease management, beekeeping chemical free, bee friendly landscapes and other such topics. Most of the time when I tell people what we are about to undertake I get the look of: Are you completely off your rocker?   So it was nice to be around hundreds of other beekeepers and see the wide range of ages and types of people

Cold!

Yesterday it reached 74 degrees and we had been experiencing days of beautiful warm weather.  Right now it is 35 with the hopes of reaching 39.  All weekend it will be in the 40s and we might reach the 50s by Tuesday.  Next week is Spring Break and I have plans of doing lots of outdoor chores and I need the beautiful Spring weather to come back!

Over the Rhine

Over the weekend Andy and I were downtown driving through a very run down part of town that is trying to revitalize.  Amongst some of the renovated buildings and mostly run down buildings we passed a green lot that caught my eye.  I turned the car around to inspect and realized we had happened upon Over the Rhine's community garden! 

There were dozens of raised beds in neatly mulched rows, a covered shelter area, compost piles, and a beautiful mural.  I can't tell you how excited I was to discover that a part of town that seems so down and out with almost no green space had such a well maintained and welcoming community garden.  It's exciting for me to see the gardening bug catching on everywhere and for people to want to grow more and improve their communities!   

Late

I am running late on planning our garden this year.  I have yet to buy any seeds.  Only this past weekend did I finally look at the seeds I currently have, which is only a bunch of lettuces.  We've been otherwise occupied with our decision to become beekeepers, planning the garden expansion, and everyday life.  I need to hurry and pick out what we want because in a week or two I need to get some seeds in the ground!

Happy Spring

As of today Spring has officially sprung!  I am excited and looking forward to warmer weather and the world reawakening.  Our indoor tulips are blooming and a welcome reminder that Spring is here!

Pruning Sage

Last year I pruned the Sage back in the Fall and it came back bigger and better than ever.  I let it go all Fall and into the Winter to see how long it would last before it went dormant and the leaves turned.  It was definitely time to give a haircut to this mangled mess.  The photos aren't all that great but they give you an idea how much I took off.

Urban Farm

I currently subscribe to Organic Gardening and devour it in one sitting once I pull it from the mailbox.  I reread it a few times in the following weeks to further absorb the information and then stash it in my collection as a resource.  This weekend I found a second new favorite, Urban Farm.  I have checked it out in the past and enjoyed the articles.  On Saturday I pulled it off the shelves again and have officially decided to get a subscription.  It is all about growing food and raising animals within a city or in small spaces. 

Andy has been wanting blueberry bushes for well over a year now.  But knowing how big they get at the local blueberry patch we just don't have room.  The current issue has an article on dwarf varieties that work well in containers.  So guess who is getting a blueberry bush!  There was also an article about creating a homemade, affordable, indoor grow light; which has been high on my want list.  Additionally there were other great articles on urban beekeeping, chicken raising, community gardens and others.  Each time I read the magazine there is always 1 or 2 articles I want to keep as resources.  I am definitely looking forward to the new subscription and would highly reccomend it to any other urban gardener, farmer, homesteader.

29

Today is my 29th birthday.  To celebrate we are going to a gardening class on how to care for your tools and shopping for cedar lumber for our raised beds.  To some people this would be torture but to me it's fun.  For dinner we are going to a great restaurant that only cooks local, organic, sustainable food.

Goodbye Row Cover

It has gotten warmer and thus I finally pulled off the row cover I put down in the Fall as an experiment to see how long it would extend the plants.  I pulled up the radishes to see how they fared.  They looked ok but were no longer firm and had not weathered the elements well.  The cilantro however continues to thrive and I am going to do my best to use it all up in the next couple weeks before we prepare the garden for Spring.

First Growth

The chives have begun to break through and is the first thing to grow and show up in the garden this year!

Asparagus

This week I pulled my potted asparagus experiment out of the garage and back outside.  I originally put it in the garage because I was afraid that it wouldn't make it through the winter since it isn't insulated the way an in-ground asparagus plant is.  The garage isn't insulated so the asparagus experienced a milder winter than it would have outside.  We will see what happens with this experiment.  I have been contemplating adding a bed just for asparagus in our new garden plans.

Sunflowers

I just couldn't resist these $4 sunflowers at the store this week.  Flowers just make me happy and are a welcome reminder that Spring is around the corner.

Moss

Our garden slopes downward.  In the lowest section moss has started growing since the end of the season last year.  I knew the drainage wasn't great but I didn't realize this bad.  The higher end of the garden drains really well without any problems.  Since we are adding raised beds in other parts of our yard we are considering adding beds here to alleviate this issue.

Peace Corps turns 50

Today the Peace Corps turns 50!  In celebration The Cincinnati Enquirer did a story on organized volunteerism and interviewed Andy since he is in charge of his company's community outreach.  The story is here.

Signs of Spring

It is March 1st and Spring is right around the corner.  With the unseasonably warm weather the bulbs are starting to come up!

Crocuses

Daffodils peek out 

Tulips breaking through.  I will be interested to see how well they fare since this will be their second season.  Normally tulips do their best year in their first year.

Timbeeerrrrr!

Today we cut down part of our neighbor's tree.  Our neighbor has a Magnolia tree on the side of their house.  I have nothing against Magnolia trees, in bloom they are gorgeous!  However this magnolia tree was planted in a 6 foot space, literally 1-2 feet from the property line and 3-4 feet from the side of our neighbors house.  So naturally it had no place to grow but over our yard. 

The tree is beautiful for about a week after which it drops its thousands of petals all over my freshly tilled garden.  All Summer long it shades my garden every afternoon and in the Fall drops all of it's thick waxy leaves onto our property.  Needless to say this Magnolia is not my favorite.  Andy and I have gone back and forth between whether or not to cut down the largest branch which hangs directly over the compost pile and possible spot for the bees.  We know that according to the city any part of the plant that falls on our property we are allowed to trim, prune or cut.  But we cut the branch at the base of the tree on the neighbor's property because it would look best this way.  Hopefully they don't get mad, but a renter lives there so we don't think they will care.

Before

After

Assembling

Over the long weekend on our day off my friends Michelle and Karl came over to help me assemble the frames for the beehive.  We had to add wire for extra support and then the wax foundation.  Between the three of us we completed the job in about 2.5 hours.  I was excited to get it done and really appreciated their help and expertise!

  

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Most of you know that I am the cook in the house but Andy is the chocolatier of the house.  He quite often makes chocolate strawberries for us, family or friends.  Knowing his propensity for creating these treats his sister asked him to make 160 for her wedding that was this past Saturday.  She was having a champagne brunch reception and wanted to have them plated with her cupcakes in lieu of a cake.   I was a bit worried that the project was more than we could chew but it ended up being relatively painless and took us a couple of hours.  Here is how we spent our Friday evening:

This is what about 200+ strawberries look like, we wanted to make sure we had enough for mistakes, extras and the few duds we would find.

A few of the final product, we ended up with 184 chocolate covered strawberries!

Arrival!

Look at what showed up on our doorstep earlier this week. I was like a child at Christmas!

Isn't it pretty!