And in Other News

And by the way, (and seemingly much more importantly), I'm pregnant! So I'm just a producer of life on all accounts! Yay for productivity! Anyways, my youngest just turned 10 a couple weekends ago, so this is making me a teeny bit leery of starting allll over again!

You thought you were going to get a political rant, didn't you! Well, maybe later. Living in Findlay takes all my political steam out of me and turns it into fairy dust. It's exhausting. But I do have some thoughts on the healthcare bill. I know, a day late and a dollar short, eh?

This is my new condensed version of what I put together last year for my seed starting. I got an Aerogrow garden for Christmas that I put kitchen herbs in, and when I realized they sold a seed starter kit, I found a used space saver version that I transplanted the kitchen herbs in (top shelf), and used the larger garden to start my seeds (middle shelf). The bottom shelf just holds my supplies: books, my special guano hydroponic fertilizer, watering cans, etc. And also on the top shelf I have all my seeds, my planner as well as a thermostat. Off to the right I have plans for a eraser board to keep track of my planting, transplanting, re-transplanting, and direct planting. But that might be pipe dreams, I have a lot of those.

I don't quite have a plan for when I transplant into larger containers, maybe I can keep them in there until its time to plant into the garden. I haven't looked that far ahead, since I just got the first set of seeds in the Aerogarden yesterday. I am still going to keep my downstairs operation set up, and I really had plans for that metal shelving unit being a perfect aquaponics unit, and I have to admit I cringed a little when hubby brought that ugly thing upstairs, but honestly it will only be there until the melon and squash get in the ground, I don't plan on a continual planting of those crazy things.

If you're wondering what I started, I took an educated guess (since I knew I was running out of time, and there was none to spare for research, I figured I could trust 3 years of practice!) I started the Tigger Melon, Black Beauty zucchini, both tomatoes (Purple Russian and Fox Cherry), 5 color Peppers, Chinese Lantern, Both Little Gem and May Queen Lettuces and my Red Creole Onion. I think probably i could have started my cukes since I did my zucchini, but I think I just forgot. Maybe I'll go do that now. Those will be my favorite crop this year, as well as the popcorn/baby corn.

The ground still isn't dry enough to work up, and this year I plan on mixing in some "Mel's Mix" since I got that industrial sized bag of vermiculite, and my compost is looking wonderful this year. That's mostly why i started my onions indoors. I'm not sure if I plan on harvesting this year, as long as I get something to put in the ground, maybe I'll have a winter harvest at best, but next year they will be perfect! I have these new interesting strawberries that I'm looking for a safe place for... Last year I had my asparagus, strawberries and rhubarb planted along the garage, and protected by some wimpy decorative wire thing that only really keeps rabbits out, but not dogs. After my asparagus was attacked by asparagus beetles last year, if there was any hope at all for it coming back, it was erased by my psycho digging dog. Not even one sprig came back. Eck.

So that's where I am. My Dear Garden Diary entry for today. See you again soon!