A Time to Sow

Yesterday morning, we planted the spring garden.  There's a special satisfaction to those first seeds of the year going into the soil.  Our labor in preparing the beds for the last few weeks paid off.  The soil was light and easy to work and the weeds were small and few.  Sadly, the lemon tree seeds we planted a few weeks ago never sprouted.  I did some research on starting lemon trees from seed this morning and found out why they didn't sprout.  Apparently, they have to be planted as soon after they come out of the lemon as possible.  If they are allowed to dry out, their chances of sprouting are less than half.  The seeds I planted (and the ones I mailed to Fatkat) had been drying for over a year.  I emailed the information I found to Fatkat yesterday, but the email bounced back today.  So, if you're reading this, Fatkat, my apologies and here's the link ...
http://aces.nmsu.edu/ces/yard/2000/040800.html.

The lemon tree seeds were a disappointment but no lesson learned is ever a waste of time.  I'm expecting great things from the vegetable garden though.  We planted corn, green peas, green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and Kennebec potatoes yesterday.  Two weeks from now, I expect to see everything sprouted and on it's way.   Two months from now, I expect to have a bountiful harvest.

I'll plant some pepper seeds today in a tire garden we prepared and some flowers seeds in buckets around the patio.  I have narcissus, daffodils and lilies of several varieties already blooming in the yard.  But I want to plant marigolds around the edges of the vegetable garden.  I'll start them in buckets and transplant them to the garden when they're well started.  Marigolds are a wonderful addition to backyard vegetable garden.  I happen to think they're pretty flowers but, more importantly, they are very low maintenance, heat tolerant and offensive to most of the bugs that would damage your crops.  They come in several shades of yellow and some have crimson edges on the petals.  A splash of color is a nice addition to the backyard garden and the bees attracted by the blooms will improve your harvest.  I will be planting sunflowers along the fence by the garden too.  When the sunflower blooms are spent, they can be hung up and dried, then hung out for the birds to enjoy.

Before we went out to work in the garden, Yeoldfurt started a load of whites in the washer and I started a batch of pepper bread in the Breadman Plus.  I use the dough cycle, so I had to come back in the house at varying intervals to move the first batch of dough to a bread pan for the final rise and start the second batch, then later to bake the first loaf and set the second batch up for the final rise.  By the time we finished our outside chores, it was noon and the house smelled of warm bread and fresh clean laundry.  We had accomplished a lot for the morning.  The rest of the day was pretty lazy by comparison but that's okay.  We had a good day.