Spring has officially sprung!

Today I did some hardcore spring cleaning- I cleaned out the backyard shed. I mean REALLY cleaned it out. And I confess, I didn't even know it had a red painted floor until today, because it has always been under a thick coat of dust and dirt. Youch!!! So now I'm extremely pleased to have a good workspace out back.

We dug up our front yard (yes, our FRONT yard, it's the only place with good amounts of sunlight) and created six raised beds. I heard a local Master Gardener say yesterday that the ground was still too cold to plant seeds. I winced a little and hung my head in shame; I planted seeds in our beds last weekend. Oops. But on the bright side.... we have some beautiful little sprouts today!!!

Picture: Cherokee Trail of Tears Bean. I love this bean. It grows easily and produces a LOT of beans. Last year my sister and I grew these, and I had enough for several meals and about 2 qts to freeze. I'm hoping to up the yield this year with the garden in my yard (last year we were growing them together on property an hour away from my home).

Next comes the okra. I ordered these Heirloom Dwarf Green Pod Okra seeds from My Victory Garden on Etsy . They arrived quickly, and I started the seeds indoors several weeks ago. I used a little trick I read about in Mother Earth News a while back- I've been saving my toilet paper rolls, and I used them as little seed pots. When I put the seedlings into the garden, they went straight in with the little pots! They are biodegradable and the roots are able to grow right on down into the earth. I'm very excited about my okra, as my best friend and I are positively obsessed with pickled okra, and I plan to pickle enough to last us all year!

Along with pickling okra, there will be lots of cucumber pickling going on at the end of the summer here at Casa Buck. Pickles, Relish, Chow Chow... oh the possibilites. The variety I have chosen this year is one I purchased from Horizon Herbs last year and had seeds left over. It is called Peacemore, and I also grew it last year. It grew well and produced a TON of cucumbers. This year I hope to save the seeds myself from this crop to use next year. I'm a VERY novice seed saver, but I will be working on that :)

My husband is in charge of the tomatoes this year. I've tried growing them for years with zero success. I'm convinced I'm tomato jinxed, so we'll see how he fares this year. He will be growing Romas and Amish Paste tomatoes. The Romas were bought as plants to transplant, but I'm starting the Amish Pastes from seed for him to transplant later. We also have some nice Latvian seeds that he may attempt, too.

My beautiful Passionflowers are sprouting up for Year#3 on my porch, the catnip is back in action, and the cuttings from Leanne's garden last year (lemon balm & some beautiful lillies) are peeking out of the ground.