Spring has Sprouted

Well, it's that time of year where we start thinking about our garden. We want to have a bigger garden this year and put up (a.k.a. "can") a lot of food. We've also decided to sprout our own seeds to plant since it's not a good idea to plant up here until after Mother's Day. That's right Lowlanders, it would not be entirely strange if we had another snow...on Easter...with Easter being late this year. These are the mountains and you just never know what you're going to get! :)

We ordered our seeds from Annie's Heirloom Seeds and are really excited about it. We really wanted to stay away from GMO seeds and are looking forward to seeing how they turn out. Check out their website as we got all of our seeds plus shipping for under $25!

We bought this little "greenhouse" at Lowe's the other weekend and planted them Sunday after getting our seeds. It has what I affectionately call little "peat pods" that you expand with water and then add 2-3 seeds per pod. Once you put the cover on and put it in a warm, sunny place you have a great little indoor greenhouse that you will be able to transfer "starts" to your own garden. Great stuff!

What you see here are 9 "pods" each of (left to right) sugar baby watermelon, squash, cabbage, and Koralik tomatoes. The Koralik tomatoes are an early, red cherry tomato for Evie's Cheesy Tomato Tarts among other things...

On this side we have 9 each of (left to right) Caspian Pink Tomatoes, Martino's Roma Tomatoes, and zucchini. The Caspian Pinks are beefsteak tomatoes. Tomato sandwiches HERE I COME!!! The Romas are for making spaghetti sauce. Yes, tomato paste is cheap to make our own sauce which turns out well but it'll be nice to have sauce from our own fresh tomatoes come winter, don't ya think? A complete aerial view. You're welcome. We also have cauliflower, carrots, and lettuce that will go straight into the ground. We will have one raised bed devoted completely to beans and we hope to be able to can A LOT. This is the first year since we've been married that I have had to buy green beans at the store and it's killed me. I didn't can any beans last year due to Cade's arrival at the time of bean canning. If we have another child, I don't think I'll let that happen again. :) We'll keep you updated as we plant but here we go!