Coming up!

Wow, my early seed planting has paid off.  I am now watching seeds (sown earlier this spring) come up just like they're supposed to - right when they're ready!  They've waited for the perfect time and temperatures for themselves, and here they are:

Bush peas
Bush beans
Blue Jade Corn
Zinnias
Cosmos
Nasturtiums (trailing and climbing - they're Richard's favorite, therefore I planted a ton)
Sunflowers
Hollyhocks
ALL 5 (!!) kinds of potatoes here (2 varieties at my mom's)
Chives
Sweet Peas
Miner's Lettuce
Chard (ready to harvest)
Spinach (almost ready to harvest)
Beets
Snap Dragons
5 kinds of onions

I moved these out of the cold frame last weekend - before the rains:

Velvet Queen Sunflowers
Winningstadt Cabbage (18 of them!)
Bachelors Buttons
Calendula
Black Beauty Zucchini (only one, hail and snow are common this month and are not easy on broadleaved plants)


Somehow, planting early (seeds) makes me have an easier spring as well as a more neurotic one.  I am constantly wondering where the seedlings are, did the seeds rot, what's taking them so long...*sigh* it is hard work fretting over plants.  So I've stopped a bit, but it's still very exciting to see them come up!

We have new beds in the back of our lot, on the ground - not raised - and they are composed of some very crummy soil.  So, we've underseeded it in crimson clover (nitrogen-depositing legume and great for creating root paths because they have a vast, deep root system) and have spread soil with a very low pH over it to help stabilize the acidity since it's sky high.  When planting seeds, we dig a hole, plant the seed, and cover it with this better soil then mulch with grass clippings.  We'll see how they act through the season, but it seems to be helping.  The soil we are adding is from underneath a conifer (pine, spruce, cedar, redwood etc) and it is a simple, free (labor excluded obviously), organic way to help lower the pH in your soil.  Results should show within two weeks on existing plants.