But this time, I've got some pictures that are my current pride, and a couple of pictures that are 'history in the making' from what others are saying. I realize that snow in May is something us here in the KC Metro area couldn't have imagined before yesterday, but it hit us! Luckily for those of us planting gardens, it doesn't look as though the snow and cold weather will last too awful long, but it was enough to prevent me from getting my seedlings planted in the garden that's all dug up, tilled, and even has compost added (thanks to the City of Olathe for the wonderful free compost!), all ready for growing some yummilicious veggies.
My current project for the day is some homemade Amish White Bread for tomorrow's sloppy joe dinner and some Rye Flatbread for lunchtime sandwiches for me and the hubs, but it's not the first time I've tackled homemade bread. I've made flatbread on one other occasion, and I've made loaves of white and wheat bread on a number of occasions over the past six months of my stay-at-home mom time. Btw, this is my first try at adding links into the blog- yay for me! Oh, and if you can't tell, these are not my recipes. I steal recipes. Well, more appropriately, I use other people's recipes. And I'm more than happy to share the recipes that work for me, and of course, give credit where credit is due.
I'll talk more about my homemade breads later, but let me get this train of thought back on track. Seedlings and snow!
This was the first picture I took of yesterday's snow on our back patio. No, we're not sloppy people, the wind blew that chair over, and I wasn't brave enough to step outside to set it back upright until today! We were lucky enough to only get a dusting, and it was already melted by about noon today.
I decided to take another picture so you could see more of the yard- our neighbor has a small garden started in his half of the yard (we're in a duplex, if you didn't already know or hadn't caught on to that from my non-existing hints). The white square is the blanket covering his baby seedlings that have started sprouting. I hadn't decided to transplant anything to my garden yet- when we heard we were expecting freezing temperatures and possibly snow, I decided to wait a bit longer before taking my babies outside. They are still cluttering up my kitchen.
These are my babies!
My pictures include beefsteak and cherry tomatoes, jalapeno, serrano, and green bell peppers, and sweet yellow onions in the flats/cardboard box bottoms on the table, and radishes, basil, thyme and dill in the containers. I also have started parsley, cilantro, green onions, carrots, and oregano, but they hadn't germinated by the time I took this pictures yesterday. As of today, though, my green onions, parsley, and cilantro are started to germinate! Whoo-hoo!!! There are teeny-tiny sprouts starting.
I started the tomatoes, peppers and onions in a couple seed starting kits I had purchased at WalMart all the way back in March, thinking I'd be putting them in a garden at the end of April. By early April, they were already getting a bit big for the starter tray, so I made these oh-so-simple newspaper pots that I transplanted them into. They've grown quite a bit since then too! Believe it or not, the bottom leaves were barely above the potting soil when I transplanted them.
When I made my newspaper pots, I decided to take some advice I had seen on numerous different resources and blogs online- I put a tiny bit of epsom salt and some crushed up eggshells I had been saving for this exact purpose in the bottom of the pot on a thin layer of soil. I then added a bit more soil, stirred it up a little, added the seedling, and finished filling to just below the leaves with more potting soil. The epsom salt and eggshells are supposed to help make the plants grow stronger and produce more fruit. The calcium from the eggshells will help keep the tomato peel strong, so you hopefully won't be harvesting any split tomatoes! Fingers crossed!
If you're interested in how to make these newspaper pots, visit How To Plant Seeds. This site shows the basic gist of it... but I used an empty tin can (from canned veggies) and half of a newspaper page for the large size pots that I made. Seasoning containers to make newspaper pots will be my choice instead of starter kits next year!
So these are my baby seedlings I'll be transplanting to the garden in about a week or so, pot and all. I have other seeds I'll be sowing directly into the garden- we've always had luck with green beans, cucumbers and zucchini squash, and I'm also trying okra for the first time. If you visit my page, please leave a comment to let me know you were here and how you found me. Since I'm brand new to the blogging world and have lots to learn about advertising my page, I need all the help I can get!
Thanks for bearing with me on my second blogging experience, and don't forget- live better today than you did yesterday!
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