The Yard is Blossoming!!

Today I discovered that this plant in our yard has beautiful purple flowers all over it! Not sure what type of plant is it, but it was sure a pleasant surprise!

Our pear tree is also starting to get some blossoms on it. We did a lot of pruning, so it's nice to see that we didn't kill it :)

It's hard to see the blossoms at this distance.

Crazy that these turn into yummy, juicy pears.

We also have some green leaves sprouting from our Brown Turkey Fig Tree. I'm excited to try these!

This is the only fruit tree that we planted that has any sign of life/growth.

Our Box Elder trees are covered with small green leaves now. Some of the pink blossoms are still showing, but the green is starting to take over. Today I even saw a few small leaves growing on the large Sycamore we have in our front yard.

I love GREEN!

This is seriously a pretty tree.

These pots have Ranunculus bulbs in them. I lost the bag in our garage and planted them way after I should have. Some of the pots didn't have drainage holes in the bottom and nothing is growing in those pots, however, the few that have drainage holes have sprouts.

See the little pot... it didn't have a hole in the bottom :(

I have created a plan for the garden and hope that it works out the way I want it to. I'm concerned about the areas where I plan to plant directly in the ground. My goal is to get everything in the garden beds and 1/2 wine barrels planted first and then I'll attempt the in-ground edible portion of the garden. 

The plan for the back right garden area of our yard.

I'm really excited to get the edible part of the garden going. I think I'll start one garden bed with  vegetables and one garden bed with flowers over my spring break, but wait for the others until then end of the month or even early May when it's more likely there won't be frost.

Seedling TAKEOVER!

parsley 

marigold

And for more front of the house updates... I love seeing which flower will make an appearance each day! It's cute because Patrick always points out his new favorite too.

The flower bed to the left of the front door.

A beautiful red Tulip opens ready for pollinators.

Daffodil bliss.... quite a few of the Tulips are hiding (they're a few inches shorter than most of the Daffodils).

It's so green and pretty :)

Can you see the chrysalis? I spotted this thing on the Sycamore back in November and it's still hanging on for dear life.

And of course... it is not all rainbows and sunshine here in Cotati. We have a major gopher problem. Check out the size of this gopher mound! Seriously, they're all over the place and the diameter of the hole is about 3-5 inches (that's a HUGE gopher!!!). My uncle mentioned that we should get an owl box. That way owls will move into our yard and hunt these critters. The boxes are back ordered right now, but I am looking forward to getting one in our yard ASAP!

This wasn't there yesterday!

Look at the mounds in comparison to the Shout bottle. They're honestly 6-8 inches high (at least)!

It's REALLY Spring Now!

Even if it won't last at least it really feels like spring today :)

I love that my father-in-law came over today and added a 3 and a half inch wood perimeter around my garden beds and filled it in with wood chips. It looks amazing and it's begging for me to plant!!

Pressure treated Douglas Fir with 12 inch lags to secure them into the ground. 

He also brought over half wine barrels for more plants! They still need to be soaked, drilled, and lined... hopefully Patrick will help with that ;)

Looking more like it's ready for wine than dirt!

Ha ha I tried taking the picture so that you CAN'T see how badly we need to paint our house!!!

Also, it's exciting to see that the cucumber seedlings now have a third leaf. It is very different from the other leaves and I'm excited to see how these progress. I think cucumber is a vine plant that likes to climb... we'll see.

The Transplant

Cucumber, cauliflower, and broccoli hit the height potential in the Burpee grow house, so I knew it was time for a transplant. However, I have never done something like this before. I watched a brief YouTube Video of an old guy doing it in Texas, but I'm not so sure I'm even at the right stage or if they're the same type of plant! Seriously, the seedlings were planted 10 days prior to when I repotted the them.

The Transplants!

Check out the roots on the cucumber... such a fast growing seed!

It is so cool because I remember seeing the onion seed, which looked like a small black chip of charcoal and thinking - that will never grow! Check it out now...

It's hard to see, but if you look closely you can see the black seed at the end of one of the green sprouts.

Oops accidentally uprooted an onion while taking off the clear dome.

I planted all of the cucumber seedlings alone because they already seemed SO BIG! Check out one of my first transplants below:

I just removed the duo from the seedling tray.

oops one that hadn't seen sunlight or max potential yet

Check out that root structure... so impressive for 10 days in dirt!

The cucumber seedling is going into the soil.

Honestly, I don't know if the seedlings are supposed to be alone or in groups. I have never grown vegetables on my own and never even seen broc/cauli or cucumber grow before. Anyhow, I was getting sick of planting so many and I thought Patrick might get upset if I covered the entire kitchen table with vegetable and herb seedlings. It's a bit of an experiment but with the broc/cauli I planted groups of 1, 3, and 5-9 (I didn't plant broccoli and cauliflower together, but remember I think I may have gotten them switched). Ha, ha check it out as it is without planting single seedlings!!

before

after

The same day as the seedling transplant I had started out planting some Redwood trees in the backyard, but then it started to pour rain so I started in on the seedlings. 

When you plant trees and tend to an acre- you need WOLVERINE BOOTS!

I'm standing right where I dug the hole and planted the next Redwood.

I am still seeing new bulbs pop up in the front garden beds. It's so exciting! I love the vibrant colors of the tulips and the large daffodils with the dark orange centers.

A beautiful tulip popped up on the far end of the garden bed next to a maroon pansy.

Daffodil a plenty!

My favorites are the large white and yellow daffodils with the orange centers :)

Seedling Update

Wow!! I can't believe how fast most of the seedlings have grown! It hasn't even been one full week! This week I started doing a little more research by reading forums on a gardening website. http://idigmygarden.com/forums/

I found out a bit about companion planting. Companion planting is when different plants are planted next to each other to help ward of pests and encourage growth. I also discovered that some plants can cause harm or stunt growth when planted near one another. Now I have the big task of doing some garden planning with the seeds I bought to see how I will plant/design the garden beds and spaces around them. I'm super annoyed with myself because I can't be sure if I mixed up the labels for the broccoli and cauliflower!!!! Grr! And now I found out that radish near broccoli is a great companion, but cauliflower is NOT!

Is it cauliflower or broccoli? only time will tell :(

I'm thinking some day soon that I'll need to plant the seedlings in larger cups to encourage a longer root structure... maybe tomorrow?! Not all of them need to be replanted yet, but look how BIG the cucumbers have gotten! They almost all have large double leaf structures.

In the meantime, (more like when it finally QUITS raining!) Posting pictures of the yard helps to excite me about the edible part of my garden that will get started soon. Hopefully my next post will explain the amazing plans I have for the garden.

Rosemary plants

A lil Irish cheer on the front gate for the month of March

Lots of Daffodils!! (Grass grew back though... pulled it awhile back)

A beautiful squatty tulip amongst the other pretties!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Love this sign that my in-laws gave us at our engagement party :)

P.S. I hope I didn't start these seedlings too soon!!! It's so wet, cold, and gloomy outside that I honestly can't imagine the next time I'll be able to go out and enjoy tending to the beds and implementing plans for the soil.

P.P.S. My dad gave me two more bags of bulbs today! Man, I'm going to be seriously busy!!!