The white stuff

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Just when the hot, sunny days start to lull you into a false sense of security, mother nature strikes.

Woke up this morning to a whole lot of white stuff on the ground. How (HOW???) can it be 80 degrees yesterday afternoon and be snowing by this morning? I thought it had to be below 32 degrees for the snow to stick to the ground. Apparently not.

6:45am, me outside in my woollies (and getting soaked) trying to locate my broccoli plants and dig them out of the snow. Got every large pot, pan and bowl I own and covered them up before the weight of the wet spring snow completely crushed them. Hopefully it will melt later today and I can see how much damage has been done. I’m pretty sure my neighbors think I’m insane digging around in the snow first thing in the morning.

I can see this is just the beginning of gardening in Colorado.

Tomato woes

Thought I could get a jump start on tomatoes by starting one in our topsy turvey hanger thing. My brilliant idea – we can hang it outside during the day, and bring it inside at night when it freezes.  Better in theory than in actuality.

Didn’t realize the thing would weigh 50 pounds. Took us a whole weekend to install hooks and find studs that could handle the weight. Then I realized there’s no way I’m strong enough to transport the thing back and forth every day for the next two months. Then I got carried away and over-watered it – it’s been dripping for two days…

Probably should have just waited until it’s warm enough. Lesson learned.

The good news is my tulips are up!

Faith like potatoes...?

Not much gardening being done on the weekends – it’s cold and wet. Frantically trying to get cool weather crops in the ground in the evenings after work, my only window of dry, sunny weather so far this spring. Apparently peas were supposed to be planted in March. Really? March?? Everything is still frozen in March. Oh well.

We now have scallions, red onions, and lettuce. The peas are growing like champs, as well as the broccoli. Spinach and onion seedlings are poking hopefully out of the ground. I’ve had to look up pictures on the internet so I know what the plants are supposed to look like. Believe me, the seedlings look nothing like the grown-up plant. Hard to imagine these spindly little green shoots will be a head of spinach in a month or two. That is, if I don’t kill them before then.

 Oregon Snow Peas

Spinach sprouting

Potato?

I can’t quite tell if the stuff growing in the potato bed are weeds or potato plants. I do know that they are quite fuzzy. As much as I desperately want to pull out every little thing that dares to invade my garden space, I must resist until I can make sure I’m not single-handedly demolishing all my hard work. I was inspired to plant potatoes after watching the amazing movie faith like potatoes.

Garden beginnings and doggie determination

As most everyone knows, Colorado is not the easiest place to grow a vegetable garden. We have a short growing season and heavy clay soils, damaging winds, temperatures in the spring can range from the 20s to the 80s, and we’ve been known to get hail the size of golf balls in the summer.

Despite all this (and my better judgment), I have decided to take the plunge and see if I can grow anything in our overgrown, somewhat neglected backyard. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I roto-tilled. Yup. And it was fun! Besides not being able to move my upper body the next day, there’s somehow a huge amount of satisfaction in knowing that what was once a section of rocky, hard clay with some weeds is now a garden, complete with walkways, waiting expectantly for its vegetable residents.

After a full day was spent tilling, building raised beds and shoveling lots and lots of topsoil and compost, the fence went up. Initially intended to keep a certain someone from trampling my delicate seedlings, we soon realized that our best intentions at keeping Lucy out of the garden were…well, not good enough. With Lucy, where there’s a will there’s a way. Seems like she’s been in there more than I have. We’ve rebuilt and reinforced the fence a few times since its installation.

This weekend the potatoes (red and Yukon gold), snow peas, spinach, and broccoli have gone in. Apparently these plants are frost hardy, and I’m hoping that’s true because I know for a fact that we haven't seen the last of the snow this year.

 

                                                         
Broccoli seedlings from Fort Collins Nursery

I’m trying to be as organic as possible and stay away from chemical fertilizers and pesticides. We’re only going to plant what we know we’ll eat (i.e. no radishes or other ridiculous vegetables).  I’m also doing a little experiment on how much money has gone into the garden versus what we end up getting out of it this summer. So far, we’ve totaled about $100. Couldn’t believe how much stores charge for topsoil. Come on, people, it’s dirt!

Even if we don't break even I’d still be happy with home grown produce.  You just can’t beat fresh from the garden vegetables – the hard-earned fruit of long, sweaty hours weeding and watering.