Thinking about spring and gardening

Its that time of year when I start thinking about spring and planning our garden. Five years ago I would have never thought I would spend as much time as I do thinking, planning, and tending to plants. But I really do enjoy it.

Last years garden was a success if you don't count the cilantro or non-tomato producing tomatoes. The tomato plants were very hardy, but we didn't get one single tomato. I can't even remember how many tomato plants we had, but it was enough to produce more than enough tomatoes all summer for the both of us. I'm still a little bitter.

Anyways, with the new shelf in the laundry room I was able to save a couple of plants from our non-so-harsh winter. I even started a new plant(s). The last jalepeno of last summer went bad before we could eat it. So I decided to bury it in a pot and see what happened. Success! We had about 6 sprout.

This past weekend I took the sprouts and thinned them out saving the hardiest three. I will give one away and probably keep the other two for myself. Although if I couldn't eat all the jalepenoes from one plant, not sure why I really need three this year... oh well.

Urban Farms posted last week that they had gotten in 40 varieties of heriloom seeds so I one day after work I stopped by. I picked up two varieties of tomatoes, three varieties of lettuces, snap peas, and okra. Except for tomatoes, these are all new to me.

Since I still have most of my herbs left from last year I want to experiment with new vegetables for this summer. Lettuce being something I had given thought to, but snap peas and okra were an impulse decision.

Saturday, after thinning my jalepenos, I planted the tomato seeds (two varities, five pots of each, three to a pot). Then I roused Bryan from a nap and we cleaned up a flower bed in the back yard.

I should have taken before pictures, but it was so terrible (and the rest of the yard is still pretty terrible) that I wouldn't have posted it even here. We tilled up the weeds and planted a row of snap peas along the fence line. Then we took some bricks we had lying around to create a little border. (We also forgot to take after pictures.)

According to Sproutrobot we will start the lettuce seeds in a couple of weeks and okra in a couple of months.

My other gardening plans include broccoli, mint, more thyme and rosemary, basil, cilantro, and possible more parsley.

Is anyone else thinking about gardening?