Around the Yard in May

Our attempt at growing an indoor lettuce garden wasn't very successful, but luckily a lot of the lettuce from last year reseeded itself in the garden. We wanted to save some of it before the garden got rototilled, so we potted a few plants today. We also planted a few seeds of arugula around the plants, so maybe we'll have arugula growing in there soon too. I think there's red deer tongue, black-seeded simpson, green oakleaf, cracoviensis, and Australian yellowleaf in there, but it's still a bit difficult to tell.

Jennifer and I also got some carrots planted today. We decided to plant our carrot seeds in pots again this year, since our soil in the garden isn't really suitable for the carrots; there's too much clay and the soil isn't sandy enough. Jennifer and I still had mixed coloured carrot seeds and little finger carrot seeds from last year, but we also bought a new package of little finger carrot seeds because we had the most success with them last year. On top of that, our dad gave us three packages of scarlet nantes carrots that he bought in the fall last year. We planted one package of scarlet nantes in a large pot, mixed coloured carrots and the rest of the scarlet nantes in another large pot, and the little finger carrots in two smaller pots. I should add that all of the pots are about 12 inches deep at least, which is what you should aim for if you want to grow carrots in pots. Deeper is fine, but you don't want a pot that's too small.

We are currently in the process of waiting to have our garden rototilled, so we haven't even planted many of our early crops yet, but here's some pictures from around the yard today.

The bleeding hearts are absolutely stunning at this time of year. I honestly have to say that this is one of my favourite times of the year for the flower and herb gardens. Everything looks so healthy in this in-between weather before the heat really strikes.

We also have a rose-breasted grosbeak at the kitchen window today. Our mom put a bird feeder there, so it's nice to see the birds from the kitchen window, but we never see rose-breasted grosbeaks around. They are stunning! Unfortunately I didn't get a really good picture, but I think this gives you a pretty good idea of what they look like.

That's all the news I have for now, but I think we'll be doing a lot more garden-related stuff this week, including beginning the process of hardening off our tomatoes, leeks, and pumpkins, so we should have lots more posts coming up soon.

Megan