Sprouting

Every spring we start a garden.  And every summer, we're pretty disappointed in the weed-ridden, non-producing mess we've created in the back yard.  Our soil isn't that great so nothing grows all that well.

This year, I decided we'd do things differently.  Obviously our method of a "traditional" garden wasn't working, so I planned out raised beds (to avoid using our natural soil) using the square foot gardening method.  It should be easier to control the weeds this way. 



Looks a tad OCD.  =)  The frames are made and we are going to go get the topsoil and manure later in the week.  In the meantime, I've started most of the crops inside in little Jiffy greenhouses.  I planted the tomatoes about 2 weeks ago.



They've graduated to the sunshine outside.  I'm so excited... every peat bag has 2 or 3 plants growing.  I need to thin them down to one plant each, and I did the ones where there was one that was considerably smaller.  I know this is stupid, but I feel bad for the ones that are growing so well that I have to pluck. 



Less than a week ago, I planted these.  I'm shocked at how big some of them are already.  There's a visible difference day by day.  The two veggies that I wasn't sure would grow well are the biggest.  Spaghetti squash and broccoli.  There's some zucchini trying to keep up, too.  My melons and banana peppers are taking their sweet time... I hope they come up soon.  And my little sunflowers are doing very well.  They are Elf Sunflowers... they only grow 14" tall.  I love miniature things.



And we can't forget about the other flowers.  I took some out-grown ride-on toys the girls had abandoned outside and planted some Sweet William seeds in the buckets.  I really wasn't expecting anything, but look at the tiny little leaves!  The bigger leaves are most likely just junk the girls threw in there.  My flower gardens go about as well as the veggie gardens, so I'm pretty excited.  =)

This Spring is just amazing me more than ever before.  I see how much everything is growing day by day and it's just really inspiring to see what a little bitty seed can do in a pile of dirt.  Definitely a lesson to be learned there...