Soooooo, the sun has finally decided to come outside and play and the strawberries have followed!  I never knew that strawberry fruit literally grew out of the flower of the strawberry plant.  The strawberries from my garden are small, deep red, and delicious.  My other plants are coming along well, also.

I haven’t seen any evidence of the mole that lives in my garden, and hopes that s/he has moved on.  So far, my little garden has been easy to maintain.  I water my plants when I get off work in the morning (around 6 am/6:30ish), and pull any weeds that are trying to grow near them.  I also clip any yellow leaves (a tip from my garden coach, Scott).

I’m a little worried that raccoons will eat my veggies when they start to mature, as we some very active raccoons in my neighborhood.  When I was a child, I used to leave cucumbers, carrots, and potato salad in my backyard for them, and I’d eventually witness them eating what I left.  I wonder if there is any sure-fire way to keep pests away (moles included).  Hmmmm….

Anyone who lives in Seattle knows that we haven’t had the best weather this month.  I heard a meteorologist on the news refer to this month as “Juneuary” and I feel that the tag is well deserved – especially since the cold snap that we had a couple of weeks ago seems to have killed many of my seeds!  Add to that the fact that there is a mole who lives in my garden, & apparently s/he loves to burrow under my sugar snap peas (which are doing fine, I might add).  Oh, if I only had a BB Gun (just kidding, PETA… I think)!

Scott (garden coach) didn’t seem phased by our setbacks.  He said that we could re-plant some of the seeds with the aid of compost.  When I told him that I would go to Lowe’s to pick up the compost, he mentioned that I should check out Lowe’s starts.  Wait, Lowe’s has starts?  I ended up purchasing cucumber and bell pepper starts, and Scott brought me some tomato and straight-neck squash starts.  We re-planted my green bean seeds along with all the starts, and are hoping for the best.  *sigh*

Seattle’s weather is so unpredictable that starts might be a great option.  We’ll see how this goes…

Side note:  When I visited my garden today, I noticed that there was a foam on the underside of one of the sugar snap pea leaves.  When I wiped the foam away, I noticed that there was a tiny bright green critter in all the foam.  The critter was cute and everything, but something is taking bites out my sugar snap pea leaves.  Does anyone know what lays their eggs in foam?  I know that bugs typically lay their eggs on the underside of leaves, but the critter was so small that I couldn’t tell what it was.

Last Monday (May 24th) Scott and I planted more seeds:  green beans, sweet  basil, and zucchini squash.  I am going to start my herb garden in the house, and am planning on using egg crates to plant the seeds.  Once the seeds start to sprout, I’ll put them in the ground .  Scott and I also dug up one of each of the previous seeds we planted, to ensure that they had sprouted.  Once we were satisfied that they had, we carefully covered them back up.

There is a huge rock pile in my backyard and I decided to use them to make home-made markers for my garden.  I took a black sharpie and labeled the rocks with what I had planted in the area.  Then I placed each labeled rock in a shallow well in the general area of the crop.

Scott and I also figured out how to “propagate” (google it!) collard green seeds.  My father had some collard green plants that returned (don’t remember the proper term for this) from last year, so I plucked a few of the seeds off.  The seeds didn’t look like seeds at all -  they actually resembled the stalk of a small flower.  In order to propagate them you must first dry the seeds out, so they are currently drying in my room.  I look forward to planting them!

We’ve had some cold and rainy weather this May, so my tomatoes and peppers will have to wait until the sun decides to be more consistant.

Gardening is a lot easier than I thought.  That is to say: it’s a lot easier than forking over money at the grocery store to buy some produce from who-knows-where, and was picked before it was ripe

It all began with some free soil and cedar planks, enough to make two raised beds (good lookin’ Syreeta and Kristi).  I had already made my video with Inye and was very excited about the prospect of growing my own food.  Then the kids and I met with our garden coach, Kristel, who gave me pointers on soil preparation and foods that grow best in Seattle.  We made a list of seeds and planned to plant shortly thereafter.  I was geeked!  With our large yard, I thought I could do four beds easy.  Kristel and I chose the best locations based on full sun availability.  It was my job to prepare the beds (which I would soon find out is more than a notion) before Kristel’s next visit.

It took me four hours to hammer and nail together two 4′ x 8′ garden beds.  Cedar wood is extremely strong, making my manual efforts difficult.  Two sore shoulders and numerous bent nails later, the beds were put together.  My daughter assisted towards the end.  Although proud of my accomplishments, I vowed to never do this again without the aid of a nail gun.  It was also at this time that I decided to start small – two beds would be enough for now.  Even with just the beds sitting on the ground, the garden was starting to take shape.