Spring Garden Update -

It’s time for a Spring Garden Update! I can hardly believe it’s been almost two months since my Spring Garden Planning post because so much has happened since then. Thankfully, I’m happy to report that everything is going very well in my wildflower garden and in the greenhouse.

The wildflower garden started coming to life about a week ago. I was very excited to see the 1st buds on my California Poppies and since then, I’ve seen new blooms almost every day. A few more flowers are popping up each day and now I wish I would have planted more.

I also planted four French Lavender plants on the southern border of the garden for some extra color and fragrance. So far, they seem to be thriving and the bees are loving them too.

It took a couple of weeks for me to get everything settled in the greenhouse. First, I planted herbs and lettuce directly into my shallow beds and tiered planters. The lettuce came in very uneven, so I did a second sowing a few weeks after the first and those seem to be coming in more evenly now. I think I didn’t water the seeds enough, so they weren’t germinating.

Yesterday, I did my first lettuce and herb harvest and had the most delicious salad!

After the lettuce, I planted seeds in two of my three raised planters. In the first, I planted sugar snap peas and carrots. The peas are now happily climbing up the string trellis. This is something I’ve never tried before, so I’ll have to see how well the string trellis works. I chaos-gardened the carrots in front of the peas and, to my surprise, they germinated very quickly. I’m now working on thinning them out little by little to give them enough space to produce nice, large carrots.

Near the front entrance of the greenhouse, I planted zucchini in a pot with a wooden trellis. Last year, when I planted zucchini outside, they sprouted up so healthy and strong. They produced gorgeous blossoms that the squirrels promptly demolished. This year, I’m determined to succeed with my zucchini!

In the second raised planter, I planted cucumbers along the back and radishes and beets in the front. They all seem to be thriving too! The radishes are growing very quickly and I’ve even harvested a few already. I also recently discovered that you can eat the radish greens either raw or cooked. Our chickens seem to enjoy the fresh greens too. Since we have so many, I’m glad we can share them with our feathered friends.

The final, and perhaps most labor-intensive, task in the greenhouse was transplanting all of my cherry tomatoes and peppers. Once I started trying to plan where everything would go, I realized I may have been a bit overly-enthusiastic about those seedlings! Somehow, I managed to figure it out. My third raised planter is full of cherry tomatoes. I’ve individually staked them and I am hoping for the best. Honestly, they may be too crowded. I purchased more individual pots and planted all of the peppers and the rest of the cherry tomatoes in those.

Aside from some good potting soil, I didn’t need many new supplies but I did discover a couple of things that I’ve been loving. The first is this Velcro Brand One-Wrap Garden Ties.

It’s essentially a big roll of Velcro tape that you can cut to size and wrap around your stems to support them to stakes, etc. They are easy to use and reusable. I like them much better than the thin metal twist ties and plastic tape.

The second product I discovered are these plastic twist clips that have small and large openings. They fasten with a little snap and are also very easy to use and gentle on stems.

You can find links to these and many other items on this blog on my Favorite Things page.

Now that everything is planted and growing, I’m enjoying my morning and early evening garden check-ins. It is a calming part of my day and so satisfying to see these plants thriving.