As soon as the soil can be worked.

I assume that term doesn't specifically apply to "when you are able to get the baby settled and the toddler distracted with his truck enough to get some work done", instead I think it has more to do with the frost level and the weather.

Either way, I finally got my bed prepped enough, my twine strung (for a straight line) and a little time so I could put my onions in. I handled the onions all myself, as I'm growing from seed they were just too small for little hand. Both the toddler and my friend's daughter (4) were very "helpful" in planting the carrots (some heavy pruning will be required!) and putting in the garlic. I also got some assistance throwing cut-potatoes into the potato box.

Sometimes it's a little extra work to include my little helpers, but the reward of passing on my love of gardening is definitely worth the effort.

Raised beds & the reason he's MY man!

My husband did a wonderful, self-less sweet thing for me this year. Some women want jewels and candy, I'm just not that kinda gal. He picked up the scrap wood from a job site. I can't believe the waste of cutting off 2" of a 2x4 then throwing it into the burn pile because it's cheaper to buy new wood (and charge the customers for it) then bring your "leftover" wood from one job-site to another. Good reasons for paying attention to what your contractors are charging you for!

Over the course of two evenings, my husband created 2 4'x4' boxes, one for cauliflower and one for peppers. Then 2 4'x3' U-shapes for each end to plant peas & cherry tomatoes on the fence. Then 3 13'x3' boxes for the rest of my vegetables. He's also built me a new compost out of a few skids with extra boards throw in (I've got the fanciest looking compost in town!). There is also an old pipe-fittings box that is just perfect for my potatoes. For March in Ottawa, it is completely unheard of that we would have no snow! We got a huge jump on the backyard work, especially the vegetable garden. There has even been talk of a white picket fence to keep the dogs out.

The best part of raised-beds is how easy it is to segment the work for each day. As I've turned the soil and prepped my beds I've been able to pick a few feet of whichever bed I'm working on to concentrate on for that day. Much easier when I've got two little babes running around to watch. With all the rain we have had the last two years it also creates a system that will allow the beds to drain; so hopefully I won't see all my tomatoes develop Blossom End Rot and all my onions drown like last year.

I was impatient and planted out my cauliflower seedlings. I'm covering them at night, but I have no idea if they will live or not. Perhaps the warm weather is making me too optimistic, but if I can get a big enough jump on them, I might just get two crops of cauliflower in, so to me, it's worth the risk. I'm waiting to finish my beds for when the farmer brings us a few loads of old cow-manure for my beds, I'm going to be growing huge veggies this year! I'll just side-dress the cauliflower when the time comes.

Seedlings are taking over my home...

Starting from the end of February something started stirring in my soul. I just couldn't ignore it any more, my green thumb was tingling and there was only one way to stop it. February is a little early but it was that or go mad, so I chose to get planting.

I used an interesting technique to create seedling pots from newspaper YouTube has lots of great videos. It's free & worked well for my smaller and slow growing seedlings such as my herbs, and strawberries. I transplanted all my tomatoes into half water-bottles because I wanted to separate them and that has worked very well. The newspaper pots did not work for my Atlantic Giant Pumpkins, they grew far too quickly (although I think that's a good thing!). I had to transplant them into half 2L soda-pop bottles, which worked well enough until the went outside.

The seed flats have Red Beauty onion seeds in them, but very few of them grew - I believe I might have drown them, but transplanted them into the garden anyway to see if anything would grow. Here's hoping & here is to spring!

My "First" Year of Gardening

I don't count my first year of veggie gardening any more. My first son was born in April 2008, and with having a new baby, being a new house-wife, babysitting a friend's child during the day and attempting to train my horse; the garden was an unmitigated disaster. My eyes where bigger then my skills, I took on too much, let the weeds grow too big and ended up with 1 cucumber, 3 beans, and a bruised ego.

My second year went much better, and thus, in my mind at least, I count it as my first real year of vegetable gardening. I chose a section of yard that had previously been a dog run and in the fall of 2008 I cleaned up any remaining excrement and tackled the gravel/stone-dust head on. In the spring of 2009, and it was not an easy task by any means, I managed to turn over that entire plot by hand and prepare it for vegetables. I planned to simply plant the seeds in rows in the cultivated soil, and it worked well.

I scoured high & low for cheap vegetable seeds, then I carefully laid out my vegetable selections so that they would be easier to weed between. Once May hit (and we had our last frost) I pounced! It was a terrible year for weather, it rained & rained & rained & rained and when it wasn't raining, it was cloudy. We only had a few days of sunshine in 2009. Still, my bounty was modest but in comparison to my "first" year - a success!

Despite being pregnant with our second, and the encumbrance that causes, I faithfully trudged into my garden every day, my one-year-old in tow to tend to the plants, and the garden was good to us. More cucumbers then we could eat, delicious Danver carrots, and lettuce so fresh & sweet I've sworn off store-bought for good. I even managed to grow enough pumpkins in the terrible weather so we had 3 all ready for Halloween.

Now with two little men at my heels I've taken even more time to carefully research my variety options and plan out my spacing. So for my second year of gardening I'm going to be planting:

Organic early jalapeño peppers
Atlantic giant pumpkin (for my husband)
Broom corn
Calypso cucumber
Early dawn cauliflower
Napoli carrot
Utah celery
Red beauty onions
Arugula
Vista watermelon
Lincoln peas
Roma tomatoes
Vegetable spaghetti squash
Rosemary
Small sugar pumpkin
Catnip
Vulcan lettuce
Temptation strawberries
Birdhouse gourds
Socrates peppers
Honey-select corn
Spring garlic
Tay belle squash
Onyx zucchini
Early butternut squash
Indigo radicchio
Vesey mosaic tomato mix (cherry tomatoes)
English lavender
Mint
Oregano
Sage
German winter thyme
Chives
Basil

Already the weather is much warmer, and there is a promise of less rain. I just hope the gardening-gods are on my side this time!