Tuesday, March 31, 2009

pretty gardening

I feel pretty today. At least when I'm not looking in the mirror I feel pretty. I like it when I feel pretty. I washed my hair this morning and used my happy raspberry shampoo. And I'm wearing a deep red shirt - red makes me happy. And I dug out a necklace that was my moms - small earthy beads of red, brown, black, cream. Our son liked the necklace and had to wear it for a while before I was allowed to have it back. So anyway, I may be tired, but at least I don't feel ugly tried today. If I could just get some tone in my belly I'd feel even prettier. But I guess that would require more than wishing and actually getting my act together to do some exercises. Maybe I'll be happy with my mediocre middle for now.

Last evening we did some cold gardening. We got potatoes, peas, spinach, and kale planted. More of each to come, but at least a start. DS was a great helper until we tried to use "his" tent stakes to mark to rows. He eventually recovered when we replaced the tent stakes with pin flags. He did a great job of helping place potatoes, plant peas and spinach, and cover up the rows. Our daughter rode with me and tried to eat the camera strap.

(early norland red potatoes)

(covering potatoes, to be hilled later)

(planting Wando peas)

(more peas, please)

(spinach going in seeds)

(almost bedtime for the baby gardener)

2 comments:

  1. I love to see kiddos getting out in the dirt! It makes my heart smile, :-)

    If you get a chance, can you tell me a bit about when you harvest your cold weather veggies? I planted peas and spinach and am wondering when to harvest and remove them from our garden (we have a tiny garden and I'd like to grow as much as possible).

    Thanks!

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  2. We start harvesting the spinach as soon at the leaves are big enough to eat - depends on how impatient you are. ;) We just pinch off individual leaves instead of pulling the whole plant. Eventually the plants will start to bolt and go to seed. Usually the spinach leaves turn very pointy at the same time if I remember correctly. Spinach doesn't like hot weather, so we pull it up and do a fall crop (if I get it together).

    Peas also like the cool weather and really slow down when it gets hot. You can probably pull them up in June when production slows down/stops. I start eating peas as soon as I can - the first week or so none make it into the house because we eat them all on the spot.

    If you planted the peas too thickly you can eat the sprouts as they come up, too. Just pinch them off at ground level and munch. Yum.

    A few other good things for early spring (that you can pull out and put something in their place later) are kohlrabi and broccoli.

    Enjoy your garden!

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