Seed & Seedling Plans

It's time to order seeds and seedlings and I don't have my list finalized, as usual. I'm going to have some busy weeks coming up and if I don't get it done now, it won't happen. In addition to Petunia's Garden vegetables, we are continuing to plant assorted tree and shrub seedlings on a hillside and have plans for a hedgerow effect in a few other places. For seedlings, there are some nice opportunities coming up: King County Conservation District has an annual Native Bareroot Plant sale. Pre-orders must be placed by Jan. 31 for pickup on March 5 & 6. Any plants not sold through the pre-orders will be for sale on March 5 & 6 also. See the website: http://kingcd.org for plants and more information.

Weyerhaeuser public seedling sale is Feb. 15 and March 20. See this link for more information: Western WA Public Sales Event .

Below, is one of the Tall Oregon Grapes from our first King County bareroot sale.

I'll be posting my 2010 vegetable planning list this week... really!

Pumpkins in January

I haven't made a pumpkin pie yet this winter. Must do something about that!

I did bake this guy and made Honey Pumpkin Butter. It's all gone now. Time to bake another. This is a small sugar pumpkin who lost his stem during harvest.

Blackberry January

For trimming blackberry thickets, rather than picking them, a nice day in January is just the thing. The green canes are quite noticeable and there isn't so much growth to fight through. I leave some growing, but try to keep them from taking over everything in sight.

In the photo, above, you can see a long green cane going up through the tree, well over my head. These canes can over take tree limbs or shrubs, at what seems like, overnight!

I was happy to find this shrub, above, in an area where we're trying to reduce the blackberry overgrowth. Also encountered a sweet little bird with yellow patches near the eyes.

Unfortunately, there are also some ivy patches. Tackling the ivy will have to move up my priority list!

Blackberries get their revenge, too. I'm stick picking out thorns...

January Garden

Here is the garden, yesterday, after the shadows had set in. A lot of the flower seed heads are still in place and we've seen birds regularly passing through and picking seeds. Here is the bit tidier January 2009 photo. Click on the label, below, to see other monthly photos.

I did find a few green spots as I toured around...

Above, feverfew is sprouting. It moved into my garden as small plant last April.

Money Plant, Lunaria Annua - aka Honesty, Moon Wart, Satin Flower. These sprouted last year from seeds I'd collected from the plants growing in our fence row.

Rained Out

Our annual New Year's Day geocaching excursion was rained out yesterday. We made it to one, and unsuccessfully searched for another. It was just too wet for our liking.

That's okay. DH only had to look as far as his favorite geocaching bag to find several travel bugs he forgot about. (Guess this means I can start re-giving him presents and he won't notice...) So, he is getting them logged and planning the caches he wants to visit this weekend.

Happy 2010!

Best wishes for 2010

to you, your family and your garden!

I don't know about you, but I really enjoyed (needed) that first cup of coffee in 2010! Even so, it was well worth it to see the old year out and the new year in with friends.