How My Garden Grows

I haven't found time to blog due to dh's business picking up, which is great, but means more bookkeeping work for me. Not to mention income taxes are due in just 5 short weeks. The way time is flying by, it will be April 16th before I know it.

I'm still working at my garden. Last weekend on Sunday evening, the first of March, I finally got my eighteen tomato plants into the ground. The weather has been weird though, really cold at night, and hot during the day. I'm supposed to "harden off" the baby plants over a week to ten days, well, I am only home three days in a row, and so I have to do the best I can with my limits. I took the baby tomato plants out over the three days, then planted them on the third night. It is the time of year here that the wind blows a lot (March through May) so I took some boxes that I had and formed them into a circle and glued the flaps on top. There is a small hole in the top for the plants to get some sun during the day. Ideally, I'd be able to take the protective box off and then around noon put it back on. The next day, put the box back on around 1pm, the next day 2pm. But again, that's not an option. So I'm a little worried about my tomato plants making it. It's too cold at night for them to be uncovered, it was down to 45°F on Sunday morning, which is much too cold for them to be unprotected. I love that it is staying cool, but not for the garden's sake!

On that weekend, I also planted seeds. Squash, corn, cucumbers and some flower seeds. I also planted potato eyes.

Today, while watering after I got home from work, I spotted this one lone seedling. I am pretty sure it's corn!! I only saw the one, so I hope by tomorrow and the next day, I'll be seeing more.

I harvested peas again today. Every few days a few more pods are ready to pick. I didn't plant enough pea plants, but I will know better next time.

I also have 10 eggplant plants indoors that need to go outside. The target transplanting date is March 1st, but they are still manageable indoors, so I am going to wait until the weather is warmer. I also have watermelon plants indoors, that need to be transplanted. And I had hoped to plant some seeds for Butternut squash, a winter squash. My chart indicated I should plant between March 1st and 15th, but I don't think it's consistently warm enough yet. I'm concerned that when it finally warms up, it will be hot right away, instead of slowly getting warmer and warmer. Well, I can only do my best. I have not determined exactly where I'm putting the eggplant babies. I am contemplating putting them in the squash bed, that would be easiest. But the eggplant might shade the squash too much. I am also planning to plant green beans. I have tried them before, but have not had a lot of success. It is really hard gardening this year, because my back is really bothering me a lot, spasms from standing and bending and stooping too much. Plus there are a lot of weeds. In the past years, dh was able to help me a lot more with the garden, but he has to take the jobs that come as they do, in order to stay busy. Kev has been helping me a LOT. He helped me dig out one bed, then I laid the chicken wire bottom and sides, and then Kev filled it back in with dirt, and five wheelbarrows of composted hay and goat manure. It is a nice big bed, and I am so grateful that Kev helped me. I never could have gotten it done on my own. It took him half an hour to do what would have taken me six hours!

This past weekend was stressful. Ds1 had a doctor's appointment, with a new doctor. Thank God, the visit was positive, and the new doctor seems to be someone I can work with. Regarding Ds1's fear of needles, she said, "I'm going to need you to help me be creative, because it is inevitable that he will need to have his blood drawn to test his thyroid, for diabetes and (can't remember if she said liver or kidneys)." I was very encouraged by this. She also knows the doctor that "fired" ds1, and said, "That's just Stephen being Stephen." As if to say he's a jerk, she knows it, and has heard it a lot. One of her office staff also told me she has had her children see "Stephen" for eight years and she doesn't know what he's doing there, and that she has had numerous fights with him and is going to have her children seen by the doctor she is working for. Regarding the blood test - I have heard that many of these tests can be done with saliva, and are actually more accurate!! So I hope to learn more about this and hopefully can get his tests done with saliva.

Like I mentioned earlier, tax season is upon us. I am only about halfway to being ready to file our taxes. A lot of the work that remains to be done is dh's businesses. I was using Quickbooks Simple Start 2008, but came to the conclusion I am going to have to upgrade to Quickbooks Pro. I bought it yesterday for $99.99 from Staples Office Products. I am actually kind of excited to start using the real program, but I won't get a chance to get started with it until the weekend.

Until next time.