first tomatoe showing in the greenhouse!

First tomato showing in the greenhouse today! What a lovely surprise. Friends all have tomatoes, but they bought theirs from the store already in flower. These are grown from seed in the greenhouse! I also have lettuce ready to eat in the greenhouse.
The garden is the slowest it has ever been. However the past 2 days has seen beets, carrots, romaine lettuce, all sprout. The peas have been up almost 2 weeks, and this morning there were no cucumbers up, but this evening 2 have broken the ground. The other end of the garden has most of the potatoes up and doing well, then there is the corn. Or should I say what corn. I didn't plant as much this year just 3 short rows about 24 seeds in all. 2 only 2 have sprouted and grown. That is a terrible average. I also planted a lot of flower seeds, so far the marigolds, sunflowers and zinnias and windmill flowers ( that's not their proper name, but for the life of me I can't remember the name just now, and I just remember someone calling them windmill flowers years ago).
Then I also have 10 tomato plants from seeds that I grew in the greenhouse ( actually all these are ones that self grew from tomatoes in the greenhouse last year!), they are far behind the ones in the greenhouse and I very much doubt they will have tomatoes this year. It has been too cold at nights and the past 3 days are the first really warm days we've had.
Today Chad and Kaylee are getting married. The Polzin family are all down for the wedding. I hope they will have a great marriage. Chad's Mom and Dad are the people we bought this house from. It seems funny to see the young boy that lived here grown up and a man now. Even funnier that Jessie their youngest boy is graduated this year, the same as my Michale's daughter Jessica! That year must have been the year to name children Jessie's! LOL, that is strange how we go through name phases, even my Michaele, that time period everyone seemed to name their daughter's Michelle, I just spelt it different.
Yesterday was Canada day. quiet and only heard the ambulance sirens once. I hate holidays for all the accidents on the highway near us. So far it doesn't sound bad this year.
We've been cutting the wood we had delivered and I will stack some tomorrow. It will take us all summer but if we do a little everyday we will get it all done by fall for winter.

planting the garden, day 2

Another lovely day. It is reading 20C. outside, and the sun is shining! It was supposed to rain last evening, but nothing materialized, however the garden is still very wet.
I planted a row of yellow ( bush) wax beans today and ended the row with 2 hills of zuchini. Then by the potatoes I planted 2 more rows of potatoes, mainly pontiac, netted gem , and micmac( just a few of these). At least that's the names I was given for the potatoes. So lots of baby potatoes comming up, to be served , skins on with butter and dill, oh, I can taste them allready! At the end of each row I planted several corn seeds. Then to make a block of corn I planted another row of flowers and the end I planted the corn so there is a block 3 rows wide and 12 to 15 corn in each row. I figure if half grow I will have a few nice feeds of fresh corn.
So that's todays little work in the garden.

Late Garden!

Today I started planting the main garden. This is the latest I think that I have ever started! The ground is still wet. But Ed ploughed up the soil twice and I left it a couple of days since the last ploughing because of the rain. The creek is flooding and since the garden is just a foot or so higher than the creek it is very wet. Usually the creek is about a yard lower than the garden ( there is a distance of a good 100 or more feet from the creek more like yards I guess).

Any way I planted several 18 ft rows. first was beets, then carrots 15 feet, and 3 feet of romain lettuce, then a double row of peas 18 ft each, with just enough space between the rows to put up my pea fence. then comes a 18 ft row of spinach. There is room for at least another 3 rows in that area.

Next is a space about a yard and a half for a path between the sides of the garden, and then I started a row of potatoes ( seed given me by Dot and Ed) I planted about a 45 foot row then space for the roto tiller at the end of the garden for ease in turning. The garden proper is 70 feet by 45 feet ( close as I can pace out).This is the south end of the garden and the furthest away from the creek. I plan on planting another 1 or 2 rows of potatoes there, then 4 short rows of corn, I still have beans to plant Scarlet runners and some yellow wax beans ,Zuchini, acorn squash just a couple of plants for me as dh doesn't like them, Then another little row of beets and carrots. Some dill, and more later plantings of lettuce, oh and transplant my tomatoes out of the green house to the garden, also need to plant some cucumbers and radishes.

The green house has 3 tomatoe plants in bloom, 4 green pepper plants ready to bloom, 3 med. hot pepper plants just planted and so far not doing anything, lettuce up and soon ready to eat, lettuce planted a week ago and not up yet, basil, several hanging baskets of small tomatoes, and I need to plant some cucumbers in the green house at least 2.

Picture is last fall the North end of the garden and the raspberry plants.

Company has arrived and so will close for today.

Another year!

Since my last post so much has happened and the time is gone! It goes so fast and the older I get the faster time goes! Last June DH had his second hip operation. Not only that he suffered a Heart Attack on the operating table. It has been a very hard year on him. So with his many different health issues we just go one day at a time and enjoy each day as much as we can. With our wonderful friends we have managed to stay put and with luck will do so for a few more years. But who knows what the future will bring. I am planning a little smaller garden for this summer, but looking forward so much to the warm weather. Just now it is snowing yet again. The past few days has been snow, rain, snow, sun and for a short time this afternoon we even had hail! For goodness sake this is April already! What got me thinking of the Blog today was my stove! what a connection, and yet there it is, I got up this morning and baked bran muffins. But they took forever to bake. That's when we found the bottom electric coil was broken, so we had to order a new one and that will arrive tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime supper had to be done without using the oven. ( no big deal, but did mean a change in menu). Yesterday on an unexpected trip to town with DH I stopped at our grocery store ( If I am in town I always stop, rather than have to drive into town again for a forgotten item..... I keep a list on the go all the time of things we need or that are running low, just in case I am in town and I can skip the next shopping day). While in the store looking for onions, and mushrooms I saw huge Cauliflowers on sale for $1.69 each! They looked nicer than any I have seen in a long time. I bought 2.) So that made me think today of Cauliflower soup, and Tina's Cream of Cauliflower soup is one I wrote up on my blog a couple of years ago in July. So to the blog I went to retrieve the recipe. I did change and instead of milk and cream I just used 1 tin of evaporated milk. And the soup...... wonderful! We both enjoyed our supper very much and will have another bowl of soup a little later before bed as a bed time snack. Oh, and another treat, we used our new dishes, DH got me with our little income tax return. Our old dishes were pretty sad, an we were using 2 old sets that were getting worse for wear and breaking quite often lately. Our old dishes served us well for between 24 and 25 years ( I can't quite remember when we got them, but when we moved to the house before this we already had them! So I know it's over 24 year ago.) Now I must head off in another direction. My friend Mary Ann is always telling me I should write, as she likes my rambling ways. So dear freind Mary Ann , this is for you, and I will try and be more faithful in writing than I was previously.