Pear trees wearing their winter dresses and a book from the library

I read it will be 33 tonight and 29 tomorrow night!  So my dwarf Asian Pear trees will be wearing their winter dresses.  Other things will be covered also!

Here is a close up of the one tree.  Not much gardening done today.  Feeling a little under the weather!

The other tree!

Picked up this book from the library.  It will make nice reading for the colder weather!









Sharing plants with a friend, Sweet Potato & Cherry tomato

Today was a busy day! Errands this morning and sharing plants with my new friend, Darla in the afternoon.  Others have shared starters with me and I am happy to share with others when I can. Band practice tonight!

I have never done this before!  I am trying to grow a starter for a sweet potato!  Have I done it correctly?????

I have not started much from seed before.  This is my cherry tomato!  lol

Blue Flax Linum, Flowering Almond, Spinach seeds

My friend, Dianne gave me a starter of this Blue Flax Linum today.  What do you think?  If I water it faithfully, do you think it will make it?  It has dainty blue flowers when blooming and lacy foliage.  When hers was blooming it was very pretty!

My flowering almond bush.  I am wondering if I should trim it back when it is done blooming?

I wanted a spinach that wouldn't bolt so fast in the heat.  Empress of Dirt suggested Tyee and Bloomsdale Long-Standing.  I found the two seed packages today.  One is organic and one is not.  Do you buy organic seeds?  Neither said open-pollinated.  Do you save your seeds when it is not open-pollinated?   Do you buy open-pollinated seeds?



Dehydrating apples, Peppermint Plant, Celery growth, Blackberrys

The apple slices I dried last fall were all gone so drying more.  I like them cut up in my granola and for snacks.

This is my peppermint plant!

A picture so you can see how much the celery plant has grown!

I trimmed the thornless blackberry bushes today.  Have two more elsewhere.

Coco says "Whew!"  Helping Mom in the garden is a lot of work!!!!









Bob bought a cow and the corn is ready to harvest.

In order to cut down on our grocery bill Bob decided to buy a cow. He stays out in the back yard during the day but we have to bring him in at night. He sleeps with Coco our dog and as you know Coco sleeps with me.

Because the weather has been so great so early our corn is now ready to harvest!

By the way, I hope everyone has a great April 1st.



Planted Johnny Jump-ups & Cold frame growth

The weather was nice this afternoon and I planted out my Johnny Jump-ups.  I am looking forward to lots of happy faces from them this year! 

Here is a little different view of it.

These are the things growing in my cold frame.  I planted the lettuce and spinach last fall and I keep snitching from them to add to my salads.  The parsley and swiss chard are left from last year.  The little stuff are things I just planted this year.





Rain Barrel

This is the way the instructions said to set the rain barrel up.  In a heavy rain the water bounces off the top.  When it is full the 3/4 inch drain was

 not large enough to get rid of the excess water.

So Bob (my handy gardener) cut a hole for a larger drain.  Then he put the gutter into the rain barrel.  Now it works great!

Here is a close-up view.  Does anyone know if it is safe to use the rain off the roof on the vegetables?  I do use it on the flowers and bushes.  Our shingle roof is nine years old.